Second Chances
by NurdyGrl64
Summary: AU: Where Hiccup meets Toothless far sooner and leaves Berk at age 11 in search of a better life, only to be forced to return 14 years later when he's asked to look into strange and suspicious happenings arising around and within the archipelago. OOC may occur for the sake of the AU, further info in AN inside.
1. Ch 1: Intro

**Author's** **note** : Ok, so, this is one of two AU's I've had in my head for a little while now. And, yes, I know, it's another "Hiccup runs away" story. BUT, I've got my own twists and turns, some of which have already been revealed in this chapter, that I hope will pull it off into another direction, and assist in making it different. _Please_ let me know what you think, I genuinely want people's opinions… This is kind of a trial run…

I'll be posting the other one as well once I get it written out to see what people think, it's a bit darker, and I'm pretty excited to get that one going

 **Disclaimer:** None of the How to Train Your Dragon characters belong to me! They all belong to the wonderful character design team at DreamWorks studios that worked on the movie. The characters you do _not_ recognize from the show however, are all of my own creation, as well as the language that will appear in this story.

That is all! And I hope you enjoy!

* * *

 **Book of Dragons- Night Fury Entry**

 _ **Legends tell of a beast of the darkness.**_

 _ **The Unholy Offspring of Lightning and Death Itself**_

 _ **Be wary of the shadows, for the danger is that which cannot be seen**_

 _ **It preys on the unworthy that cross its path**_

 _ **If the beast is seen or heard,**_

 _ **May the lives of the innocent be spared…**_

 _ **And the souls of the damned be reaped.**_

 _ **Lest the night release its fury upon the world…**_

 _ **Though the dangers of this dragon ring true, the legends are not entirely correct. The Night Fury is blessed with a caring and childish nature, with a strong instinct to protect its own. Once a bond is created with this dragon, you not only gain a powerful ally, but an extremely loyal companion, who will stay by your side through life and death, and even risk its own life for yours.  
Their intelligence allows for deeper understanding and an even greater bond to be made, and as long as nothing causes a rift in the trust that is given, they will stand by you no matter what.**_

* * *

 _A little boy, about six years of age, ran through the woods as fast as his legs could carry him. A pack of wolves not too far behind him as he frantically jumped over fallen trees and rocks trying to get away. His lunges burned, desperate for oxygen, and his limbs cried out in pain, but he pushed through it as his young mind tried to figure a way out. He was covered in bruises, some not from the woods, and cuts from his previous fall down a steep slope, that were bleeding after being reopened when this pursuit began. He looked behind him to see how much time he had left before they closed in, and thus didn't see the shallow hole in his path, and he tripped and hit the dirt in front of him. Thoughts of this being his last living moment raced through his head as he curled up and waited for the pounce… that never came._

 _A large shadow passed over him and he heard a terrible roar, followed by yelps and thumps nearby, that lasted only moments, then silence. He didn't dare move, he laid, trying to catch his breath, afraid to look up from his curled up position on the forest floor. After a couple more seconds, the shadow fell over him again, followed by what sounded like deep, but quick, breathing of a large animal, close to his body, sniffing. He felt a light nudge on his back, and it made him curl up tighter for a moment, before finally mustering enough courage to look up, and froze._

 _The first thing he saw were wide red eyes with large pupils staring back at him, surrounded by white scales, slightly dirtied from the brief tussle, small at the creature's nose, that grew larger as they traveled up its head and down the attached neck._

' _A dragon…' the boy thought fearfully. He was frozen in place with fear, too scared to realize that the dragon was making no move to harm him, or the fact that he'd never seen a dragon like this before. He laid there, terrified, and waiting for what he expected to be a much worse death than the wolves getting him. But nothing happened. The beast just sat there, looking at him, with wide eyes._

 _The longer the silence, the stillness, the more he was able to catch his breath, and begin to think more clearly, without daring take his eyes off of the dragon standing over him. He watched it, as it watched him in return, for what felt like hours, but in reality was only a minute, when finally it took a few steps, slowly, back from him, and stopped there. Still not taking his eyes off the dragon, he slowly sat up, his limbs in too much pain to support him for long enough to stand, and he waited for anymore movement. The dragon took one, slow step toward him, and he flinched back in response, causing it to withdraw, more stillness and silence following the movement. By this point his breathing had calmed slightly, but his heart still felt as if it would burst out of his chest as he heard it pulse in his ears. He finally took the opportunity to look at the rest of dragon instead of just its face._

 _It wasn't too large, significantly smaller than a Monstrous Nightmare, but still large enough to terribly intimidate the small boy. It had a slim build, with sleek scales matching the ones on its head, with folded leathery wings, and he wagered the thing's wingspan was ginormous. It had equally as white claws, rather large, and sharp looking from his angle, a long tail with two tailfins branching off of either side of the end of it. He followed the tail back up and saw it also had spines running along its back, and he followed them back up to the dragons rounded flat head, where his eyes were drawn to the two ruby colored irises, now mere inches in front of his face._

' _When did it get so close?!' he thought with a start. His eyes couldn't leave the dragon's, and the longer he stared, the more entranced he felt by them, and the more he decided that they actually didn't look that menacing. The dilated pupils were staring at his own forest green eyes with equal curiosity. There was a sort of softness in the mix, he realized, calmness, and a little concern, almost like how a mother would look at their frightened child, trying to calm them. He hadn't realized the dragon had moved again, until he felt himself get picked up by the back of his tunic. He yelped in surprise as the fear came back to his being, and he curled up again and squeezed his eyes shut. That was, until he felt himself being placed back on the ground. His hands went down to steady himself, and he immediately realized at his touch, that it wasn't dirt under his palms, it was scales. His eyes shot open and he realized, stunned, that the dragon had placed him on its back, and was now walking through the forest at a slow, rocking pace._

 _He wasn't able to react beyond stunned silence, as he wondered where it was taking him, or where he even was. He had taken so many turns in his panic while running from the wolves that he hadn't a clue where he was. After a while of keeping as still and quiet as possible on the dragon's back, he became more aware of the familiar surrounding trees. He looked around in surprised as he realized where it was going with him. It stopped just inside the tree line, but still far enough back to not be seen by the village that was just on the other side, and it crouched low to the ground, and bent its neck around to look at him expectantly. It actually took him a moment to realize that it was waiting for him to get off, not being forceful, but waiting patiently._

 _He slowly turned his body and slid down its side and he landed on the ground with a grunt, now remembering how sore his whole body felt. He turned and looked at the dragon again, as he slowly backed away a few steps toward the village, then stopped. It watched his every move with the same gentleness it had in their previous staring contest. After a few moments of staring, it glanced to the village behind him, and back at him again._

' _Go on…' he felt it was urging. And he looked back at the village behind him, lit up by the evening light. He hadn't realized how long he'd been out, or how dark it was getting. He looked back at the dragon, and saw that it had turned and was now walking away._

" _Wait!" He cried out, startling both of them, and prompting the dragon to look back at him, waiting for him to continue. He didn't know why he called out to it, but felt compelled to say something._

"… _Thank you," he heard himself say after a silent pause, again not sure why he was saying it, but was startled by the fact that it seemed to understand his words. It bowed its head to him, as if to say "you're welcome" and glanced at the village again, urging him to go home, before turning and walking back into the thick forest, this time with no interruptions, while the boy simply watched it go._

* * *

A young man lay in his bed, slowly waking up from his slumber, and allowing his mind to process the time of day. He laid for a few moments, blinking the sleep out of his eyes, before sitting up with a yawn, followed by a stretch. Looking around his room, it was just as messy as it had been the previous night. Books, general drawings and schematics for various inventions and structures scattered over the desk in the corner, crumpled and ripped parchment scattered on the floor around it, and the window on the other side of the room was open, allowing the crisp morning air to flood into the room, and a vacant slab of stone beneath it. He got out of bed and felt the cool wood under his feet as he walked over the window and blinked his eyes at the bright sunrise, lighting up the sky and prompting those to begin the day. He was at the top of a rather tall building, three floors, so his window looked over the village full of people busying themselves with their morning chores.

He stretched again, toned muscle rippling under tattooed skin. His left shoulder had a short sleeve of Celtic knot work surrounding a woven oak tree, placed over the curve of his shoulder. His right arm had the same, but with a Celtic shield knot as the center point. Both of these tattoos curved up to meet the woven rope that curved down from his shoulders and over his collar bone, as the decorative chain of a cloak would, that led down to the wingtips of a knot woven depiction of a Night Fury at full wingspan that sat at the center of his chest. His left wrist had a Celtic woven arrow, and his right had a woven dagger. If one looked closely enough, they'd see that some of these tattoos were covering scars of multiple shapes and sizes, obtained in many different ways over the years.

He walked over to his wardrobe and pulled out his clothes for the day. A light tan colored, loose fitting long sleeved tunic tucked into brown pants, with a wide belt over his midsection, made of a leather interior and dragon scales layered on the outside, to secure it in place. His pants were tucked into darker colored boots that came half way up his calves, and were tied snuggly with a thin but strong rope around the top halves of them. Once he was dressed, he finally left his bedroom while tussling his bedhead, attempting to tame his shaggy auburn hair as he walked down the stairs, one floor down, where he walked through the doorway of the kitchen/dining area directly in front of the staircase.

"Morning Hiccup!" He looked up to see a blond man standing in front of the window by the counter at the other end of the room, he wore a similar outfit to Hiccup, just with a green color scheme and the same dark brown boots and scaly belt. His shirt, however, was sleeveless, and he also chose to wear leather cuffs that ran half the length of his forearm from his wrists, made the same as the belt, covering the bottom half of a Chinese dragon tattoo on the left forearm, and a long-blade sword on the right. His left shoulder had a short sleeve knot work tattoo, same as Hiccup's, with a Celtic arrow as the center point. His other bicep was bare in comparison, holding only three Asian characters, the meanings of them being Courage, Honor and Change respectively. The remaining tattoo was hidden under his tunic, but you could see the tip of the tail of the Night Fury that circled around his neck, beginning at his collar bone, rounding his upper back, and back again over the other shoulder and stopping at the front.

"Mornin' brother!" Hiccup replied, now a little more awake. The brother he referred to was a boy he met on his travels, not too long after leaving his birth village. His name was Arman, and he was from a large island far south of where Hiccup came from. His own family had died in a fire when he was very young, so he was orphaned when hiccup met him. The two clicked instantly, it seemed, and have been connected at the hip ever since, and Arman joined him on his journey to nowhere in particular.

He had blond hair that reached his shoulders, usually, like today, tied back in a low ponytail with whatever he can find to tie it back with, and the hair too short to tie back fell to frame his face. He had strong features, with bright green eyes, just a couple shades lighter than Hiccup's own, and his build was similar to Hiccup's, and just as toned. He was about two inches taller than him when he stood up straight instead of leaning on the wall the way he was now.

"What's for breakfast?" Hiccup asked the blond as he came fully into the room and looked around at the empty, and clean kitchen with confusion.

"I don't know, whatever you can find," Arman replied.

"Are you serious? Wasn't it your turn to make breakfast?"

"Nope, it was yours, but you decided you needed a little more beauty sleep than everyone else."

"Oh shut up, I had a late night and you know it."

"And I didn't? I was with you, idiot!"

"Yeah, but I did more work than you did."

"And what's that supposed to mean exactly?"

"Nothing, ya lazy yak."

"If I'm a lazy yak, then you're a pile of –"and that was moment chosen by the dragon outside the window to interrupt.

" **Ladies, you're both ugly, are we gonna get the day going or what?"** the dragon said in his native language.

"OH! Shots fired!" Arman called out, putting his hands up in a surrender-like fashion, as Hiccup just laughed. The interrupting dragon was a Night Fury he'd known since they were both about 7. He was another one he called brother. They to, were extremely close.

"Look who's talking, _Toothless_ ," Hiccup jabbed. It was a nickname he'd given his dragon brother when they were young, just a sibling jab, due to his retractable teeth.

" **Very funny,** _ **fishbone**_ **,"** the dragon jabbed back, using his own nickname for his human brother. Not many realize that the great variety of sounds they hear from dragons is actually a spoken language Hiccup called Draken, though difficult to pick up if you're naïve to the language's existence. Mind you, each dragon species has its own dialect of the language and thus different sounds make up their words, and to unpracticed ears, noise is all that's heard. But to someone who is familiar with hearing it, listening closely they'd realize that what they're hearing is syllables. And those syllables, to someone whom is aware of the language, and studies it, will realize that those syllables form coherent words, just not from a language easily recognized. To someone who was lucky enough to catch the words from the dragon, all they'd hear would be "Keh'ee ah-mah-neh, geh-teh-lah" which would mean nothing, if they don't speak the language.

Hiccup and Arman however, know this language very well, at least the Night Fury dialect, so they have no problem picking up the words with their own practiced ears. It's far easier to understand the words spoken when they come from a human's mouth than it is trying to decipher the syllables coming from the vocals of a dragon. For this reason they rarely speak it, reserving it for when it actually needs to be spoken. Their scaly companions understand human language perfectly well anyway, so they don't typically speak the dragons' language unless necessary.

"Fish-breath"

" **Bean pole"**

"Yak dung"

" **Twig boy"**

" **Very mature you guys…"** another voice, dragon, chimed in. The trio looked out the window and up at the roof to see Arman's own childhood companion, whom was also a Night Fury. Turned out that a certain part of the world actually had a healthy population of them spread out all over the place. They're so rare up north because they don't typically go up where it gets too cold, but occasionally you get ones that do, as the species was actually very solitary, only gathering together about once a year to mate, and then going off on their own again.

This dragon's name was Estekena, but most people in the village just call her Keh-Nah, for lack of being able to properly pronounce her real name. Her scales were lighter than her male counterpart, which made her markings slightly moreprominent, but still barely visible. She had tiger-like stripes all of the way down her body, and spots under her bright blue eyes. She was smaller than he, but not by much, and her tail fins were slimmer and longer, allowing for more speed than her counterpart while flying, but it also lessened her maneuverability when she was flying at high speed.

"Hey, how long have you been up there?" Arman asked

" **Since Hiccup finally decided to get his lazy butt out of bed and walk downstairs…"** This made Arman snicker, and Hiccup shoot a glare in his direction as a response. " **Come on Neukete, we're supposed to be helping the fishing vessels this morning."**

Neukete, or Keh-Teh to most, the previously named _Toothless_ , just rolled his eyes at his surrogate sister.

" **No one is going to die because we're not present, Keh-Nah. Relax,"** Keh-Teh replied.

"Nah, go on brother, you better get over there. Arman and I need to get to work anyway. I've got orders at the forge I gotta finish," Hiccup piped up. He then turned back to Arman, "That being said, where are Saoirse and Aodhan, and did they get breakfast?"

"I dropped them off at Meara's already, and yes, I made them breakfast before I took them over there. Now come on, we need to get a jump on the bridge project," Arman replied while beginning to walk toward the last flight of stairs.

"Wait, you made my kids breakfast and left me to fend for myself?"

"Yup. Got a problem?" Arman answered blankly.

"I thought you loved me, brother…" Hiccup said dramatically. "Yet here you are, leaving me to wither away!" He gestured wildly for emphasis.

"Awe, you're breaking my heart," Arman said mockingly, putting a hand over his heart. "Now let's go," then turning back toward the stairs.

"Feelin' the love, bro. You're such an ass," Hiccup jibed back, humor clear in his eyes.

" **And that's our que,"** Keh-Nah said as she took off from the roof. **"Let's go meet the fleet."**

" **Alright, Alright, I'm coming,"** Keh-Teh responded while grumbling to himself. **"Seriously, I'm practically a soldier, not a fisher, why do I have to…"** was all the fading speech that was heard as he flew off.

"What a baby," Hiccup said as he nabbed a piece of bread from the counter and then followed Arman down the spiral stairs to the ground floor and into the workshop. It was a rather large room, the entire bottom floor was a workshop/forge. Hiccup was the primary smith of the village when he wasn't away on another job. Half the room was his forge, tailored to his personal preferences, measurements and equipment, most of which built by himself and Arman. Hiccup had continued his study of the smithing practice, even after he left his village, that his previous mentor had begun with him, and had honed his skills to an exceptional level. The other half of the room was Arman's glass blowing shop, which was a profession he had been learning before joining his brother's travels. There was another door off to the side of the room that went up another set of spiral stairs to a woodworking area set up in a sort of building add-on room with a loft that was publically used.

They both walked over to the forge and began the preparations for the day of orders, heating everything up, Arman snagging a passing Nadder from outside to help heat the forge to the necessary temperature since their companions were out, and beginning to melt down the metal for the bridge. They had been asked to come up with a design for a bridge that would cross over a wide river running from a nearby mountain range and into a shallow canyon, connecting them to the neighboring village. Rather than following the long winding trail through the mountains that takes a full day on foot, the bridge would effectively cut travel time in half. The design they came up with was a sturdy design, making the walkway at the top of the bridge while all of the supports were underneath it and dug into the walls of the canyon. They decided to make it out of a mixture of elements, most of the supports beams being made out of wood with joint supports made out of their own mixture of metal that was able to withstand heat, water and other weather conditions without being damaged.

They had finished about a third of the required connection pieces when a burly man with dark red hair and bright green eyes walked into the forge.

"Mornin' boys! How's it goin' in 'ere? Need some help?" He asked.

"Hey Alastair! Nah, we've got it going pretty well here at the moment. But if you want to hook up a Gronkle to the kart out front there and take the finished pieces here to the river, that'd be great," Arman replied.

"How are things going down there, by the way?" Hiccup chimed in.

"Great, all of the beginning supports are in place, and we're ready to start the main construction. Just waitin' on the connection pieces."

"Perfect."

"Oh, before I forget. The chief wants you to keep an eye over the progress o' your bridge for a couple o' days. He jus' said somethin' came up tha' requires his attention."

"Uh-oh," Arman said jokingly, then turned to his brother and gave him a mock scolding look. "Hiccup, what did you do?"

"Me? If anything it'd be something _you_ did," He shot back. "Did you blow up the western pastures again?"

"ONE TIME! That happened ONE TIME, and you won't let it die."

"Nope, I'll make sure you remember that one forever."

"Keep going and I'll reserve the right to bring up all of _your_ mishaps."

"HA! Like what?" This made Arman straighten up and hold up a hand to count on his fingers as he listed.

"You blew up the great hall with Zippleback gas…"

"Now hold on, that was-"

"You took out half of the East docks when we lived in Spek…" Alastair chimed in.

"I was 13! And I had-"

"Then you took out a major trade route for Mon-" Arman continued.

"THAT was the dragon's fault, NOT mine-"

"THEN there was the time you-" Alastair began before getting cut off by Hiccup.

"OK, I GET IT!"

"Well, I'll ge' these loaded up an' down to the river now so we can keep the bridge goin'," Alastair said, chuckling as he walked out of the room to bring the kart around. Hiccup just nodded in response, and then sent a death glare at his brother, who responded by childishly sticking his tongue out, before continuing with their work.

Come evening, they had finished most of the required pieces for the bridge, stopping to take loads down to the river every now and then. Their dragon companions had joined them in the forge around noon, bearing freshly caught fish for lunch, and had basically just lazed around in the corner of the room, except to reheat the forge when needed. They had just begun to clean up the workshop and close up for the night when a little girl, about five years old, came bounding into the room, her long, curly red locks bouncing along the way.

"Daddy! Uncle Man! Miss Meara said to tell you that dinner's ready!" She shouted, despite the brothers being a mere 10 feet in front of her, effectively startling the two dragons awake. Her forest green eyes sparkling with the same energy her father's had at the same age.

"Thank you Saoirse!" Hiccup shouted back, just as playfully loud, earning a deadpanned look from Keh-Teh, and then watched as she gave everyone a giant grin and bounced back out of the room, her knee-length dark green dress rustling behind her.

"How does she have so much energy all the time?" Hiccup asked out loud to no one in particular.

" **Because she's** _ **your**_ **offspring…"** Keh-Teh replied almost instantly.

"I can only imagine when she gets older. All the trouble she'll get into, just like you," Arman chimed in.

"Yeah, don't make me think about that…" Hiccup replied as he finished putting everything away. "So Meara cooked dinner for everyone tonight, huh?"

"I guess so…" His brother responded. "I just hope she didn't cook her infamous pot of stew tonight."

"What you don't like sheep entrails?" Hiccup tossed out jokingly, referring to the previous stew meat mishap that wasn't even Meara's fault. The only response he got was an exaggerated gag from his brother, making him laugh.

"I threw up for three days after the last time I ate that stew," Arman said with a shiver.

"It wasn't even a half an hour, and you were fine after you got it out of your system," Hiccup supplied.

"THREE DAYS I TELL YOU!" Arman shot back dramatically, throwing his arms into the air, seemingly not having heard Hiccup's comment. Hiccup just rolled his eyes and threw an arm over Arman's shoulders as they all walked out the door and over to their neighbor's house.

Walking through the front door, they were immediately greeted by a scent Arman knew all too well, and he stopped with wide eyes and paled. Hiccup, picking up on the same thing his brother did, suddenly sported a wicked smirk and bit back a laugh. The dragons snorted and walked over the corner of the room to lay down by the fire that was keeping dinner warm, Alastair revealing himself from the side room with bowls in hand, tossing them some fish in passing.

"Hey Meara! Smell's great! What's cookin'!" he shouted from the front door, already knowing the answer, but just wanting to mess with his brother.

"Sheep stew!" was the smiley response they received from the elder woman in front of the cooking pot on the other side of the room.

"Get it while it's hot!" Alastair chimed in. Hiccup snickered and walked fully into the room after shutting the front door.

"Bon appetit, brother," he said mockingly as he passed, just loud enough for Arman to be only one to hear, still snickering as he went.

Sitting at the table, everyone was enjoying the stew and chowing down. All except Arman, who just sat there, staring at his bowl in dread.

"What's wrong, dear? Are you not going to eat? I made plenty!" Meara inquired. She's about twice their age with long, dark brown hair, pulled back into a braid that fell over her shoulder, and blue eyes, currently showing her concern for Arman's lack of appetite. She had been a family friend since before Hiccup and his brother were even born, having actually grown up with Alastair. Aodhan, being just as mischievous as his uncles, and being well aware of Arman's current issue, looked straight at him with the most innocent blue eyes he could muster, his auburn locks framing his rounded face only adding to the exaggerated effect, picked up his bowl and slurped loudly, earning a scolding look from Meara.

"I uh…I'm not hungry… I'm actually not feeling too well at the moment," he responded as he pushed his bowl away a couple inches, green faced. The motion earned a snort from Hiccup that he managed to cover with a fake cough. Aodhan was less successful at hiding his laugh, causing Meara to look at Hiccup expectantly while Alastair just continued eating with an amused gleam in his eye. Hiccup noticed this after a second and cleared his throat.

"Don't do that **NEE-teh-MEH** , it's rude," he managed to say half-heartedly, using the affectionate Draken term for his nephew. Saoirse simply sat contently eating her stew, naïve to the whole situation.

" **It's funny,"** Keh-Teh commented will a light snicker of his own from the other side of the room, causing Hiccup to have to cover another laugh, earning a glare from his brother and an eye roll from Keh-Nah.

"Alastair, you're the kids' grandfather. You can step in at any time, you know!" Meara said, turning to address her longtime friend.

"Sorry, the only job of the grandparent is to spoil them and give them back. Punishment is on the parent," He responded nonchalantly, earning laughter from Aodhan and his uncles and an exasperated sound from Meara.

After dinner, Hiccup and Arman took the kids back home to get them ready for bed, while their dragon siblings immediately climbed up to their respective companion's rooms for the night.

"And then Miss Meara took us to the stream after we finished eating, and Aodhan fell in the water," Saoirse babbled, telling her father all about their day with the neighboring baby-sitter. Hiccup the whole time simply listening to the rapid speech being produced through the energy only a five year old can possess, while getting her dressed in her night clothes.

"I wouldn't have fallen in if you didn't trip me," Aodhan threw into the middle of his cousin's babbling.

"And then Aodhan pushed me into the mud-"

"Cause you made me fall in the stream-"

"-And then he chased me around trying to throw mud at me! "

"Cause you threw mud at me!"

"Ok, you two, that's enough. Saoirse, you shouldn't have tripped Aodhan," Hiccup lightly scolded.

"I didn't!-"

"Yes you did!"

"And Aodhan, you are ten years old, you should know better than to egg her on. Now come on, let's get you two to bed," He cut in before they could continue. In reality, he wasn't mad at them, and thought it was good that they had the relationship they did. Aodhan may get annoyed and mad at her sometimes, but he whole heartedly plays the part of the 'big brother' cousin, and for that Hiccup was proud of him.

"I did not-""Yes you did," the two continued to whisper at each other all the way to their rooms. Hiccup picked up his daughter and whirled her around for a moment before plopping her onto her bed, with her giggling all the way. Aodhan crawled into his own bed while Hiccup walked over the center of the room to an odd contraption, built by himself out of a mix of wood and metal. It wasn't too large, half the height of his body, sitting on a table, with a wooden frame, and had a horizontal metal cylinder in the middle of it with bumps littering its surface, that was connected to metal gears by a spring, wound and held back by an arm connected to a wooden lever. A sheet of metal with separated teeth rested lightly against the side of the cylinder. Hiccup pulled down on the lever, releasing the arm, ever so slowly allowing the spring to unwind, causing the gears to roll against each other and slowly turning the cylinder in the center. The bumps in the surface of the cylinder hit the teeth of the metal sheet, and a light calming sound echoed in the room, playing a soft song.

He quietly sang the words to the lullaby as the machine played its melody, his voice adding another melodic quality to the sound being played.

"Wandering child of the earth,

Do you know just how much you're worth?

You have walked this path since your birth

You were destined for more.

There are those who'll tell you you're wrong

They will try to silence your song

But right here is where you belong

So don't search anymore

You are the dawn of a new day that's waking

A masterpiece still in the making

The blue in an ocean of grey

You are right where you need to be

Poised to inspire and to succeed

You'll be back and you'll realize one day."

He walked over to Aodhan first, and ruffled his hair lightly, making him smile and pulled the covers up to his chin. Hiccup then rested his forehead against the boy's and held it there for a moment. An affectionate gesture he picked up the habit of doing from his surrogate mother. It was a greeting, farewell, and general wish of good between friends, or even strangers with the contact being brief, but in the familial sense, it means all these things, as well as "with you always", and the contact is held a little longer.

"In your eyes there is doubt

As you try to figure it out

But that's not what life is about

So have faith there's a way.

Though the world may try to define you

It can't take the light that's inside you

So don't you dare to try hide

Let your fears fade away."

He walked over to his daughter's bed and tucked her under the covers, repeating the familial gesture he'd done to Aodhan just prior while he sang the next verse.

"You are the dawn of a new day that's waking

A masterpiece still in the making

The blue in an ocean of grey

You are right where you need to be

Poised to inspire and to succeed

Soon you'll finally find your own way."

The last line being sang softly as he walked toward the door. He looked at both kids, both comfortably falling asleep to the last notes of the song being playing by the music producing contraption. He quietly closed the door and walked lightly, so as to not make too much noise, to his own room. As he entered the doorway, he noticed a distinct lack of dragon on the stone slab under the window. Briefly wondering where his dragon brother went off to, he was about to prepare himself for the night when said missing dragon flew up passed the window and landed on the roof, dipping his head down to poke it into the window upside down.

" **Hey!"**

"Hey, where'd you go?"

" **Heard someone walkin' around outside, went to see who it was."**

"And?"

" **It was Alastair, said the chief wanted to see us."**

"For what?"

" **I dunno,"** the dragon replied with a light shrug, or at least a dragon's equivalent. Hiccup rolled his eyes and hummed at this, and walked back out of his room to see Arman waiting by the stairs. He stepped over the kids' room and poked his head in to check on them one more time before shutting the door and walking over to the stairs.

"Alright, let's go see what the chief wants. Wonder what's up…" He said as he walked down right behind his brother.

"I dunno," He said simply with a shrug, unknowingly mimicking the answer Hiccup got from Keh-Teh prior, prompting him to roll his eyes.

"Thank you, Arman. Your wise input is greatly appreciated," he said sarcastically as they reached the bottom floor and headed out toward the chief's hut.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

 _Character Glossery_ :  
 _Neukete/Keh-Teh_ : (Neh-OO-keh-TEH); Toothless  
 _Estekena/Keh-Nah_ : (Ehs-the-KEH-nah); Arman's childhood dragon companion  
 _Arman_ : (Are-man…kind of easy to pronounce that one); Hiccup's surrogate brother  
 _Saoirse_ : (seer-SHA); Hiccup's daughter  
 _Aodhan_ : (EYE-don); Hiccup's nephew  
 _Meara_ : (MEER-ah); Neighbor/ babysitter/ family friend  
 _Alastair_ : (AL-ehs-tair); Hiccup's father-in-law/Saoirse and Aodhan's grandfather.  
If you don't know who Hiccup is, why are you here?

A couple small things, first being that I have recently reviewed this story, having been forced to take a break from it for medical reasons around like, chapter 4. On a whim and out of boredom, I decided to read the story from beginning to end to make sure it was flowing alright with the new chapters being written, and wound up making a few changes and corrections based on suggestions I had gotten after this chapter was originally posted. So changes have been made from the original upload.

Next thing, Hiccup's physical appearance (without the tattoos) is basically along the lines of HTTYD2... except he actually has both feet. And Toothless, or in this story Neukete (neh-OO- keh-teh), has both tailfins. Now I know it's going to bother people to not call Toothless by his name, but there is a reason for that. He is still called Toothless from time to time, but more as a nickname.

The song used here is called Wanderer's Lullaby, written and sung by Adriana Figueroa, I suggest looking her up on YouTube, her voice is absolutely fantastic, especially in this song. It's very beautiful, and I honestly thought that it fit Hiccup's character to have a song like this to sing to his kids. The song will also have further significance later in the story.

So Draken will be portrayed in bold text whenever it is spoken, regardless if it's being spoken by a human or a dragon. It will also always be written in English, simply because writing it out in full dialog is a royal pain in the neck, and I don't want to have to make you guys scroll to the bottom to read what something means, and then scroll back up to continue reading. Cause that's annoying. Now this rule will apply with a few exceptions, like using a single word here and there. Translations will always be posted at the end of the chapter.

There will, however, be a few scene relevant instances where it will actually be written out in full dialog, but you'll know why in later chapter, and as I said before, translations will always be at the end of the chapter.

If you have read this rambling note to this point, I genuinely appreciate it, and if you wouldn't mind, leave some constructive criticism if you have it. I do enjoy writing, and I do want it to be enjoyable for people to read, not just be a virtual copy of my brain's barfing…

Thank you much! ^.^


	2. Ch 2: Assignment

**Author's Note** : Wow! So uhm, I actually didn't expect as many follows as this story got, So I guess I shall continue. Onwards! ^.^

Also, I had a couple commenters leave questions/critiques, and I was not able to message them back, so I will try to respond briefly here.

An anonymous user left a comment asking a couple of questions, and unfortunately authors can't comment back to anonymous users. So first of all, I thank you for your interest in the story! I appreciate it and glad you liked the first chapter! As for your questions:

Since Hiccup is a father, where is his wife and the children's mother?  
-Just to clarify, in case I failed to make it clear in chapter one, Hiccup only has one child, Saoirse. Aodhan is his nephew. As for where the respective missing parents are, all in due time, dear reader. I plan on revealing that over time, don't worry.

Is this a Hiccup/OC?  
-You'll just have to wait and see :3 I don't want to reveal to much before reaching any revelations in the story.

What will Stoick say to his son and possible adopted son?  
-Again, all in due time. I will get to it, I promise.

And to the guest user, who commented "For the record, no Hiccstrid. No story. Plain and simple."  
-Lol, I'll take that under consideration, thank you. I do plan on touching on that subject later.

Another user however, whom I could not contact further, as they have PM disabled, suggested a couple of things for me to change. First of all, thank you so much for your critiques, they were appreciated, I absolutely did plan on revealing the "how", "why" and "when" through flash backs, to answer your first comment, as well as the "what happened after". As for the foreign words and pronunciations, to answer your question of "why?", the words and names are out of a language that I made up with specific pronunciations, and because there is no way to insert the SYMBOLS that I made up to go along with these pronunciations, I used the English equivalent letters. I was actually stumped as to how to approach the language, as I knew that no one besides me would be able to pronounce anything, but it was a prominent piece of the story. **I have fixed this however, thanks to a suggestion I got that made it flow a lot smoother. They are no longer clunky, annoying capital letters that make no sense.** Also, worry not, the name Toothless will actually become more used and more prominent later. The flash back narrative will eventually get to that, as well as the present.

So, for this chapter, and the following ones if it works well, I will be following the advice I was given on how to insert the Draken words and names, to see if it helps in the flow of the story. Anyone, _please_ let me know what you think. Is it better? Did you like the way Chapter 1 was done better? Do you not care? What?...  
 **This issue has been fixed. I figured out what worked better and have gone back to correct previous chapters.**

 **Disclaimer:** None of the How to Train Your Dragon characters belong to me! They all belong to the wonderful character design team at DreamWorks studios that worked on the movie. The characters you do _not_ recognize however, are all of my own creation, as well as the language that appears in this story.

Alright, that's all for now, so without further ado, here is chapter two!

* * *

 _It had been a year since his encounter with the white dragon in the woods, and the boy never stopped searching for it. His curiosity trumped his fear of the unknown species. It could have killed him that day, it_ should _have killed him that day. What good has he ever done anyone during his entire existence? So_ why _is he still standing._ Why _did it spare him…and take him home!? These were questions that have haunted him since that day._

 _He returned to the woods the very next day, deciding that it was a as good a place as any to hide from the bullies that tormented him all the time. And why not? He was curious anyway, so it would give him an opportunity to explore and look for signs of the dragon's presence. Since then, he had spent the last year zigzagging through the trees, learning every path, every tree, rock and hole in the dirt. He knows it better than his own village at this point! At least, he liked to think so… And this was exactly where he was at the current time. His bullies, Snotlout, Ruffnut and Tuffnut, had decided to pick on him today, and thought it would be hilarious to try to tie him half way up the post of a lookout torch, so of course he ran for it. And he ran straight to the place he knew he'd be able to lose them._

 _He ran down one of the recognizable hunting paths first, then jagged across to a game trail, then jagged again to a trail that he marked in ways only he can recognize. And took off as fast as he could from there, bouncing from trail to trail until he was sure that he lost them. He finally stopped to catch his breath behind a rock, and looked around to where he was exactly, only to find that he had never been here before._

 _Wait…what?_

' _How did I miss this?' he thought to himself as he looked back to where he came from. He knew his three pursuers had lost his trail, but he'd hidden behind the rock just as an extra precaution, and found himself discovering somewhere new. There was a narrow path between the two rocks sitting there that he had no problem fitting through, and he discovered that it opened up into a cove with a stream feeding into a pond on that took up most of it, leaving the remaining dry land as a crescent shape. Looking around for a way down, he discovered that there was a way in between a couple of boulders just beneath him, so he carefully slid down the side of the cove wall and slid down the boulders until he reached the grass._

 _Once he righted himself again, he looked around and took everything in with a sense of awe. Trees seemed to grow out of the sides of the cove wall, and the pond's water was like a reflective plate illustrating the sky littered with clouds._

' _That looks cool, that rock kind of looks like…wait'_

 _He looked up to see the object at the other end of the pond that was being reflected, and found that after a year of searching, he was finally looking at the object of his obsession._

 _The white dragon from a year ago was curled up by the side of the pond, head under its wing, seemingly asleep. He tried to steady his breathing and still his shaking hands, as he stepped toward the heap of white as quietly as possible. He froze when he saw movement, but not from the mass of white. It was behind it, in the shadows against the cove wall. He hadn't even seen it until it moved, it was perfectly camouflaged. He stayed perfectly still, unsure of what to do. In front of him was the dragon he'd been searching for, just snoozing away in the sunshine, but at the same time there was something he couldn't see very clearly hiding in the dark shadows behind it. He was afraid to make any kind of movement for fear of triggering some kind of attack. That was until the black mass moved again, this time two bright green eyes turned to look directly at him._

 _His instinct told him to run, and he listened, which in hindsight, was probably a bad idea. Because as soon as he moved, two things happened in rapid succession. The first being that he tripped over a rock that he hadn't seen prior, and hit the dirt in front of him, a rather unwanted déjà vu moment. The second thing that happened was the thing pounced on him from behind when he tried to right himself, knocking him down again, both of them rolling across the ground like a wagon wheel for a moment before hiccup found himself pinned, somehow now on his back, staring up at what had been previously staring at him from the shadows…which was currently growling in his face, actually looking rather threatening. His breathing quickened and his heart raced as his mind tried to conjure up a way out with little success._

 _All of a sudden, the black dragon got picked up by the tail with a yelp, and suspended in the air by the white one, giving him the opportunity to right himself again and put some distance between himself and the perceived danger. Once he got control of his breathing again, and tried to ignore the heart beat pulsing in his ears, he got a good look at the situation… which actually made him want to laugh. Because in front of him was the white dragon standing upright on its hind legs, making the boy remember just how big it actually was, with the much smaller black dragon's tail clamped in its jaws, holding it firmly several feet in the air as it wiggled and tried to squirm out of the white one's grasp, completely in vain._

 _He heard the white one growl, which was much deeper than the growling he'd just heard from the other one, and the squirming stopped after a couple of seconds. A couple small whines escaped the smaller ones mouth, and the larger one finally gently set it back on the ground. It looked a little dejected, if he was being honest. Now that they were both still though, he could clearly see that the smaller one looked exactly like the bigger of the two, just black with green eyes instead of white with red eyes._

' _Same kind of dragon?' he thought. Apparently he thought this out loud, because no sooner had the thought come out were the two in question looking at him, both in curiosity, the smaller one uncomfortably so, while it crouched low to the ground, looking like it was ready to pounce again. The boy gulped._

' _The Gods must hate me…'_

* * *

Hiccup and Arman sat in the chief's hut, waiting for him to come back from wherever he'd been called away to before they arrived, their two dragon companions looking in through a window from outside, as the hut didn't exactly have enough room for one of them, let alone both, to move around. The four tried to leave, saying they'd come back when the chief got there, but the chief's wife, Adelaide, wouldn't take no for an answer, and insisted that they stay and have some of the dinner she'd made that night. It's not like they weren't comfortable around the chief, they'd actually known him for a while _before_ he became chief. Heck, they recommended him for the role.

The village is small and is only a few years old, built as part of a string of small outlying villages that are used primarily as patrol bases and defensive forts for the much larger settlement that sat further inland, back in the mountains. Each village operated independently from each other, but each provided its own goods and trades to their sibling settlements, and each had its own chief, until came a time of war, where they all operated under orders of the chief of the inland settlement. This particular one they live in however is the newest one, and Hiccup and Arman had a heavy hand in its construction, so naturally they were the first ones chosen for the roll by those that were moving into the new structures. When they both turned it down, they recommended a good friend of theirs, Ewan, whom was a fantastic leader, for the role, and he happily accepted, even assisting in the naming of the village, Mundar. So they were quite comfortable around him.

Being in any chief's hut in general without him being there though, just felt…..wrong? Yeah.

That, and his wife, Odin bless her, is a little difficult to be around. She was sweet in every way, and would have your back in any situation, but she could be pushy, and anything you say can go in one ear and out the other when she has her mind set on something. So here they sat, in a room, alone, with a woman they're not entirely comfortable being around without her husband there with them.

"So how was both of your days? Have you eaten? I've just made some stew! Here have some, it's my family's recipe!" She rambled off in one breath while shoving two huge bowls toward them. Her blond hair flowed behind her with every movement, and her honey colored eyes sparkled happily. Hiccup tried to tell her that he wasn't hungry, but she wouldn't hear it. Arman on the other hand, chowed down immediately, haven't skipped eating at Meara's, which baffled Hiccup. He turned the stew down for two reasons, the first being that he'd already eaten about an hour prior, and the second being that…well, let's just say that the chief didn't marry her for her skill in the kitchen, if you can call it that.

It also didn't help that she was currently pregnant, so all who ate her food were subject to her cravings as well, but she meant well…

"How can you eat that?" Hiccup whispered to his brother, who had nabbed his bowl after finishing his own. "…and where are you putting it? These bowls are bigger than your head..."

" **It doesn't even** _ **smell**_ **good…"** Keh-Nah commented from the side. Keh-Teh shook his head with his nose wrinkled. **"I don't think even** _ **we**_ **can stomach that…"**

"I didn't eat dinner," Arman whispered back.

"And whose fault is that? Meara slaved over a perfectly good meal, that you didn't eat, and then you eat _Ada's_ cooking like it's a Snoggletog roast…"

"Meara made sheep stew…"

" _Yeah_ , and _that's_ an eye ball in your dumpling," Hiccup pointed to an object, that was indeed an eye ball - fish it looked like - poking out of the dumpling Arman had bitten into, causing him to look between his spoon holding the dumpling, and his bowl a few times, with his cheeks full of the bite he hadn't swallowed yet, suddenly questioning the contents, feeling sick all over again. The burly chief walked in just then, apologizing for his lateness. His dark brown eyes showing just how tired he was, and his auburn hair and beard amess, looking untamable, when they're usually neatly combed.

"I had an issue down at the dock I needed to take care of."

"It's alright chief, we know how busy you've been all day," Hiccup replied, relieved that he'd finally returned. Meanwhile, Arman was behind him nodding along with his brother's comment, trying to be discrete about finding somewhere to spit the food back out of his mouth, not wanting to eat anymore after Hiccup's comment. Ada had taken the bowl back to wash it after she asked if he was done eating, to which he nodded without thinking, forgetting that he still had half a dumpling in his mouth. The dragons were getting a lot of amusement out of his distress. "What with the other issues and such. Is everything ok by the way? You don't usually hand off projects that big to be supervised by someone else."

"Oh come on Hiccup, you practically built the village on your own. Handing that supervision off to you wasn't a worry for me. But, that other issue is actually what I wanted to speak to you about," the chief replied, now having walked fully into the room and sat down while beginning to take off the articles he wore day to day that identified him as the village chief, cuffs and clothing buckles stamped with the village's crest of a Night Fury curled so its nose met its tail in a complete circle. This movement caused Hiccup to have to turn around to continue talking to him, only to catch sight of Arman spitting the dumpling out into the steaming pot still over the fire. Apparently he didn't want to just swallow it. Hiccup chose to say nothing and pretended he hadn't seen anything.

"O-oh?" he inquired innocently looking back at the chief while sitting down across from him. Arman joining him after a moment.

"Yes, the other chiefs and I had a meeting about it this afternoon. Apparently, there have been some problems going on in an area that our trade ships have been passing through. Normally we'd just reroute the chips to avoid it altogether, but as you very well know, the island we trade with over there is an important ally, and we're not the only ones who's ships pass the area," the chief began, his wife handing him a bowl of stew, prompting Arman and Hiccup's eyes to widen slightly before catching themselves, and trying to pretend all was well. "Thank you dear."

Ada smiled and walked back away to finish cleaning the kitchen, waving at the dragons in the window as she went, earning s toothless grin from Keh-The and waved paw from Keh-Nah, while her husband began to eat, his tiredness making him completely oblivious to Arman's fidgeting.

"Mm, Good stew tonight, dear. What's in it?" He asked with a slight grimace, earning sympathetic looks from the other two in the room, even the dragons outside.

"Oh, the usual recipe, but I decided to try it with fish this time around." Oh, he noticed. There seemed to be a fin floating in his bowl, if he wasn't mistaken.

"And did you gut and clean the fish before throwing them in the pot?"

" **Or at least used fresh ones?"** Keh-Teh threw in quietly, getting a scolding nudge from Keh-Nah, and a look from Ewen. The chief wasn't well practiced in the language, so he wasn't sure what exactly was said, but the tone he heard was enough to tell him that the comment was rude.

"Was I supposed to?" She asked wide eyed while poking her head into the room. He paused for a moment, before finally deciding on choking his dinner down.

"It's alright love, it's still delicious," he fibbed, which made her smile and go back to the kitchen once more, Arman trying not to gag on the side. Once she was out of the room he put the bowl down and looked back at the boys.

"Are you alright Arman? You look a little green…" He asked. Arman did indeed look as if he was turning green. Hiccup all the while was trying to hold back his snickering.

"He'll be fine, I think he's just coming down with something," Hiccup answered so his brother wouldn't have to.

" **Yeah, food poisoning…"**

"Oh, well the stew should help with that!" Ada called from the other room. Hiccup ignored Keh-Teh's comment of **"kill him more likely"** and simply turned to Ada.

"Thank you, ma'am, I'm sure it will," Hiccup called back with a smile across his face before clearing his throat. "So anyway chief, what's the issue exactly, and why involve us, specifically?"

"Oh yes. Well it would seem the issue is hostile dragons." Hiccup suddenly understood. They'd been the 'go-to' for the village to solve dragon related problems since its completion. Their sibling villages have never had any issues with the local dragons in general, and they never thought about trying to communicate with them either, but the one that they live in is the first to be built to specifically accommodate them, thus allowing dragons to live _within_ the village. This of course prompted the practice of learning how to properly communicate with each other, cue language and behavioral tutoring. But, why he was being asked about an issue that's elsewhere was still confusing him. He'd always dealt with local issues.

"Well, if it's an individual or two, we may be able to check into what's going on, but if it's a nest, I don't know how much we'll be able to do."

"Individuals are easier to deal with than a nest," Arman chimed in, his queasiness beginning to go away with the subject change. "With individuals, it can be as simple as a territorial dispute, but an issue with an entire nest could mean an aggressive alpha, and that's much more difficult to deal with because the entire nest is effected by the alpha's temperament."

" **Especially if the alpha is hard headed,"** Keh-Nah chimed in, this time Hiccup translated the comment for Ewen.

"Well, I'm hoping you're all are up to the challenge then, because it isn't known if its individuals or a nest," the chief replied. "The second reason I ask for your assistance is that it's located in an that I know you know well." He said as he got up and walked over to where he had a map laying out across a table, Hiccup and Arman trailing behind.

"There," he said while pointing to an area northeast of them on the map.

"Spek," Arman pointed out. "Haven't been back there in years. What are they reporting?"

"They're having an influx of dragon migration in the area and they aren't sure where they're actually coming from. These dragons are a little aggressive and are causing problems with passing ships, and no one can figure out why. I answered all the questions I could, but eventually just ended up recommending contacting you two to look into it." Hiccup hummed at this.

"Well that doesn't sound right… If it was some kind of migration, they wouldn't be having an influx of movement during an off season. This kind of thing, for any species that I've seen, only happens either in the Summer or Winter," Arman supplied, voicing his brother's thoughts.

"So where are the migrations coming from-" Hiccup began.

"-And what is pushing the dragons into the area?" Arman finished, looking over at his brother.

"Think Alastair will mind watching the forge while we're away?" Hiccup asked.

"Probably not. I bet he'd love to get back into smithing for a little bit," Arman replied, "and I bet Meara wouldn't mind keeping an eye on the kids for us at the same time."

"So you'll have a look then?" The chief asked

"Chief, you can't just dangle a mystery in front of our faces and expect us to turn away," Arman replied, "Looks like Spek is in for a visit from its two biggest past menaces."

"Indeed, brother. Indeed," Hiccup replied with a smirk.

* * *

Meanwhile, somewhere far Northeast.

A young woman sprinted over to where a fire had just erupted in a string of huts, the responsible party taking off after the explosion, followed closely by two others, all bright green two-headed dragons. To her right, a cluster of short but hefty looking dragons of multiple colors, were attempting to break into a barn, followed by a small cluster of much larger dragons with spines poised all the way down their tails. This was the beginning of what was, unfortunately, a normal occurrence in her home village.

"FIRE!" she heard some of the surrounding inhabitants. She turned toward the barn being targeted, followed closely by three others that also saw the issue, preparing to attack and draw the attention away from the barn that held their livestock. Unfortunately, their path was cut off by a rather large dragon with its body aflame, firing at them, causing them to have to dodge. This was happening all over the village as chaos erupted from everywhere. Buildings aflame, dragons nabbing every bit of food they could find, others fending off the village's inhabitants to allow their comrades opportunity _to_ nab any food they can find.

The young woman, having dodged to the left of the previous shot, was targeted by another dragon firing the spines from its tail directly at her, which she just barely was able to roll out of the way of. Just then, a burly man with bright red hair and a helmet with large horns threw his hammer and knocked the dragon in the jaw, stunning it for a moment, allowing other men to swoop in and throw a net over it to hold it down.

"Thank you, Chief!" She called out.

"What've we got, Astrid?" He answered, not really acknowledging her thanks.

"Nadders, Zipplebacks, Gronkles and Nightmares," she stated quickly.

"Any Night Furies?"

"None, sir." This made him hum for a moment. The last Night Fury he'd come into contact with had disappeared just as suddenly as it appeared over 14 years ago, but that didn't stop him from keeping an eye out for it. He was fully prepared to slaughter it if it ever showed back up near his island. Its absence should have gave him relief, but all it did instead was make him tense in paranoia, waiting for it to return.

"Hoist the torches!" Someone from off to the side shouted, prompting torches across the village to be lit and raised, allowing a better visual in the darkness of the dragons swarming the sky.

"Re-equip at the forge and defend the west pastures," he ordered, gesturing to her damaged axe head, she hadn't even realized it _was_ damaged, then taking off in another direction where he spotted two nightmares closing in on a small troop. Not being able to reply to him, she took off toward the forge where four others her age, three men and a woman, had already arrived and were trying to get weapons.

"Re-equip and head to the west side!" She shouted to them. The only other woman present nodded, already having a sword in her hand, shoved an axe in her twin brother's arms and took off with him in tow while yelling "let's go nut-brain!" causing him to shoot an unintelligible name back as they ran.

"I can take charge here, babe," the shortest of remaining men stated with a smirk.

"In your dreams, Snotface," she growled back, shoving him off to the side, and then handing her axe through the window and barked at the boy on the other side. "Gustav! Give me another axe, and fix this one!"

Said boy, Gustav, nabbed the damaged axe out of her hand and added it to the pile of repairs next to the smith.

"Gobber! Another one!" he shouted, barely receiving a nod from the smith as reply as he worked on the needed weapon repairs. He then grabbed one of the axes he had just finished sharpening and handed it to Astrid who took off immediately after with a brief "thanks".

"Hurry up, pipsqueak! Where's my sword?!" Snotface, or Snot _lout_ rather, shouted through the window.

"I'm getting it!" Gustav shouted back as he handed a hammer to the larger man. "Here Fishlegs!"

"Thanks Gustav," the man replied as he grabbed the hammer and took off toward the west. Truth be told, he purposely made Snotlout wait until last for his weapon just to get under his skin. 'Egotistical yak,' he thought, finally handing a sharpened sword to said impatient man, not receiving a thank you before he turned and ran off.

"Man the fort Gustav, I've go' to get out there!" the burly smith, Gobber, shouted as he changed his hand attachment from a forging tool to an axe head.

"Wait! Let me help!"

"Stay put and finish those weapons!" Gobber ordered, before taking off out the door with a battle cry not waiting for an answer, leaving Gustav scowling in the forge. He sniffed indignantly before stomping back over to the grinder and the pile of weapons needing sharpened. Before he could begin sharpening again, a loud explosion was heard and debris flew across his vision as he hit the ground. His ears were ringing and his vision was blurry for a moment when he tried to get back up. A Zippleback had apparently decided to take out the side wall of the forge, and tried to fly away but was caught in a bola soon after the explosion, binding its wings to its sides. Gustav shook his head to clear it and got up, quickly grabbing an axe and running out of the space where the wall used to be, making a beeline for the Zippleback. He threw the axe across the remaining space toward the dragon, only to have it blasted out of the air by a nearby Gronkle that was now coming straight at him.

"Oh Thor…" was all he could mutter before he was snatched up by the collar and tossed back into the remnants of the forge.

"Did I no' tell ye to stay put?!" Gobber yelled to him as he swung at the charging Gronkle, knocking it sideways with a sideswipe to the jaw. Other men came running with a net to secure it while he turned his attention to the Zippleback that had managed to flip its heads around and bite the ropes off of its body, and was now heading in his direction. He swung his axe hand and the dragon managed to dodge the initial swing, but the left head got clipped in the following back swing, giving it a decent slash wound across the lower jaw. He was about to swing again when the previously mentioned Gronkle fired another shot in his direction, effectively making the men holding it down flinch back, giving it just enough opportunity to escape the net and take off. The shot was also aimed directly at him, making Gobber have to jump sideways to dodge, taking his attention off of the Zippleback just long enough for it to take off as well. When he looked back up, he saw both dragons flying away from the island, following, and followed by, many others flying off with their haul of stolen food. He watched them for a moment more before turning back to face Gustav, giving him a stern look.

"Never, _never_ ¸ find yourself in fron' of a dragon unarmed. That's a good way t' get killed," he scolded, as he hobbled on his peg leg back around the forge and over to where the chief was in the village square, leaving Gustav scowling at the floor of the demolished forge.

"What's the damage?" He asked his childhood friend.

"Too much," the Chief replied. "Everything that was being rebuilt has been burnt back down, and it'll take months to recover the amount of food that was lost." At that moment, they heard a crumbling sound, and looked over to find another wall to the forge had fallen, Gustav standing in the middle of the room to avoid getting crushed, leaving the forge now half standing.

"Ya might want t' add the forge t' the list o' damaged buildin's," Gobber tossed out there, making the chief groan.

"This is the third raid in three months, Gobber, and they've been getting a lot more aggressive in the past years."

"I know, Stoick. Trust me, I know."

"Chief," A young woman's voice was heard behind him, prompting him to turn around to face Astrid, whom looked exhausted. Her blond hair that was usually braided had come half undone and her blue eyes looked dull with fatigue. Her skin and clothes were covered with soot and dirt, though miraculously with minimal scrapes or cuts. The rest of her group not looking much better. Ruffnut and Tuffnut both looked like they had gotten caught by a cross flame, which wasn't unlikely with how quickly the two can lose focus. Snotlout looked along the same lines but with more tearing in his clothing, and Fishlegs looked ready to pass out.

"Please tell me some _semi_ -good news…" Stoick said with a sigh.

"Sorry, Chief. But a group of Nadders manage to get ahold of half of the remaining flock of sheep. A group of Nightmares jumped into the crossfire, so we couldn't get to them fast enough," She said tiredly. Stoick sighed in frustration.

"Alright," he began, "get everything cleaned up and we'll survey the extent of the damage. All injured go get treated by a healer and return to assist in the cleanup if you can."

Movement began immediately after the order was announced, and people started heading in multiple directions. Stoick walked over the cliff side and looked out into the darkness, just barely beginning to be lit up by morning sun beyond the horizon. His eyes narrowed as he stared off in the direction that the swarm of dragons had gone, his anger rising. It's almost as if they've gotten more…tactical? Protecting certain groups, targeting certain buildings, like the forge… But that's impossible, they're not that smart… Stoick's scowl deepened.

'I'll make sure that every last one of those devils dies, if it's the last thing I do.'

* * *

 **Author's note:**

 _Adelaide/Ada_ : (ada-lyda) Ewen's wife  
 _Ewen_ : (Eh-win) Chief of Mundar, Hiccup's current home village.

Yay! Ok, this is how it will stay, as I have found that it flows much better. The Draken names that will appear will now be written out phonetically, instead of the clunky capital English letters followed by pronunciations. This will also go for any Draken words that will appear. For example, Toothless, or NUKTE in this story has been fixed to read Neh-Oo-Keh-Teh, simply Keh-Teh for the sake of my typing sanity.

It's been brought to my attention just how clunky the other way actually was, and how much it didn't actually make sense to a point of view that wasn't mine. So please let me know if you like this better, I personally do.

For all new names that will be introduced, I will be creating a mini glossary that will be posted on the bottom of every chapter containing the names and who they are, in cases where Draken words are used, I will do the same. This was also a suggestion made by the same user, and I believe it's a good idea, thank you!

If you've made it this far in any of my ramblings, thank you so much, I appreciate your attention in this section, and I look forward to any feedback you may have. If anyone has any constructive criticism, do share, I would love to know what you're thinking Also, if you don't want me to reply to any questions that you have publicly via Author's Note, please be sure that you have PM enabled, so that I may respond in kind. If you are commenting as a guest or anonymous user however… Then I dunno what to tell ya. I can't message you back privately, so answers to your questions will most likely be in the beginning note on the next posted chapter. If you don't mind me answering publically, than your questions will also continue to be answered via AN.

Thank you everyone for reading! I do hope you're enjoying things so far! Till next time! :D


	3. Ch 3: Curiosity

**Author's note:** To the guest user who commented "Don't listen to that guest who likes hiccstrid", It's alright, I didn't take it to heart. I have a set way I have this story going, so you'll understand later on why I said I'd be "touching on the subject". I did kind of like your suggestion though. I might use it for another story at some point, but this particular one has a specific direction for those two that I'm not straying from. :3

Just to put it out there for future reference, if y'all are lookin' for a "Hiccup runs away and comes back later, reconnects and re-falls in love with Astrid and lives happily ever after as Berk's chief"…This is not where that is….. I like Hiccstrid myself, don't get me wrong. I mean, who doesn't like a romance that's canon? But sometimes I like to stray away from the canon story line, hence _Alternate Universe,_ and pretend that things may have happened another way.

The point of the way I am writing this is to steer _away_ from the cliché and overused plotline. :P I've got some twists and turns up my sleeve that I am willing to share if you're willing to read

And to answer the question of "Did Hiccup and Arman teach the dragons how to fight like that?"  
-The answer to that will reveal itself in time, promise :3

And just want to say thank you to everyone else who has shown interest in this story, either through comment, follows or favorites, I really appreciate it, and it makes me happy that you're enjoying and wanting to read more

Alright…

 **Disclaimer:** None of the How to Train Your Dragon characters belong to me! They all belong to the wonderful character design team at DreamWorks studios that worked on the movie. The characters you do _not_ recognize however, are all of my own creation, as well as the language that appears in this story.

That is all for now! I hope you enjoy chapter 3!

* * *

The morning following the sibling's conversation with the chief, Hiccup and Arman, having eaten breakfast and changed into their basic flight gear, were upstairs packing a couple of bags for their trip to Spek with the children on their heels.

"Do you have to go?" Saoirse asked sadly.

"Yes we do Ah-Mah-Ghee-Meh," Hiccup replied, using the affectionate Draken word for his daughter. "There are some people that need help with dragons, so Uncle Man and I are going to go and help them." He finished closing his last bag and buckling it shut as he ended his sentence. Arman walked into the room with his bags over his shoulders. His flight suit was almost identical to Hiccup's, cuffs on his forearms, similar to the ones he wore the previous morning, and a similar garment made to fit his torso, along with a pair of gloves made the same way. His chest and shoulders were covered by a thin but strong two-piece plate that was worn like a vest, made out of their special iron mixture, much lighter and stronger than average iron, and a similar plating protecting his shins, all having a thin layer of leather fitted overtop for aesthetic. He wore a leather belt with a metal buckle, stamped with the village crest, around his hips that connected to a strap that went from his left hip over his right shoulder, and his chest plating was closed and secured by a horizontal leather strap that buckled it in place, and there were places all along both articles to hold various items if need be. On his bottom half, he wore a simple pair of comfortable pants with leather boots layered under his shin guards. The only differences between his and Hiccup's gear was that Hiccup's shoulder strap contained an extra sheath for his dagger, and he wore similar sheaths for a couple of self-made weapons around his shins.

"How long are you guys going to be gone?" Aodhan asked as they walked out of the room and began descending the stairs.

"I'm not sure Nee-Teh-Meh. It depends on what the problem is and what solutions we can come up with." The kids hung their heads a little at this answer.

"Don't worry guys," Arman chimed in, ruffling both children's hair lightly, "we'll be back just as soon as we can be. In the meantime, you two be good for Miss Meara and Grandpa Alistair."

Said two individuals came walking over as soon as the group made their way out the front door of the building, Keh-Teh and Keh-Nah already being there, having gotten their saddles out of their storage already, waiting for them to be put on.

"Are you _sure_ that it's ok to leave the kids with you? We have no idea how long this is going to take and I can still get someone else to watch them," Hiccup asked while he swung the leather saddle over Keh-Teh's side and rested it in the proper place on his back.

"Oh, it's no trouble at all, I promise. I'll take good care of them, don't you worry. Besides, Alistair will be spending time with them where he can in the evenings," Meara replied happily with a reassuring smile.

"They'll be fine Hiccup. We'll all see you when you get back," Alastair chimed in. "Now go do your job, the forge may or may not be standing when you get back."

Hiccup just smiled and laughed light heartedly at the joke, now having finished securing the saddle in place, and he turned to the kids while Arman began securing their bags to the saddles.

"Now I want you two on your absolute _best_ behavior, you hear me?" he asked, receiving nods from both kids. "Listen to what Miss Meara tells you, don't fight-"

"Eat all your food, brush your hair and wear clean underwear…" Arman cut in. "Come on Hiccup, we're not leaving forever. Every _thing_ and every _one_ is taken care of, and will be here when we get back. You do this just about every time we leave for one reason or another." He finished with the bags as he said this. The only reply he got from Hiccup was a sigh, followed by an "alright…"

He pulled Saoirse close and wrapped her up in a hug before gently placing his forehead against hers in an affectionate farewell, then repeating the gesture with Aodhan, Arman doing the same. After receiving a bone crushing farewell hug from Meara and hearty clap on the shoulder with a "good luck" from Alistair, the brothers mounted their saddles, double checking that everything was secure, before giving everyone a final wave and taking off to the northeast.

* * *

At the same time, on Berk…

Astrid watched as many villagers entered the Great Hall for the chief's meeting. She had decided not to attend, already knowing what was going to be said. "Another search, we've got to be getting close", like Hel…

She had also been mulling over the more recent attacks, finding herself confused more often than not. They've been fighting a lot smarter over the last couple of years, but only recently was the change in tactic. Something wasn't right, and she knew Stoick saw it to. She continued her musing while she wandered over to the forge, or what's left of it, to pick up her now repaired axe. Enough of the forge was still functional, miraculously, so they could still work. It was just a bit draftier than usual…

"Gustav!" She called the boy once she approached. She couldn't see Gobber present anywhere, which means that Gustav was left in charge, only he didn't respond.

"Gustav!" She tried again upon entering the half standing building. She heard noise from the back of the forge and followed it to a little hideaway room, with none other than whom she was looking for, flipping through some old looking parchment.

"Gusta-"

"NOTHING!" He shouted in surprise, trying, failing, to shove the papers back into the chest that she could now see was in front of him.

"…what are you doing," she finally asked, barely needing an answer.

"Uh…Special smithing business…It's uh…none of your concern," He tried to wave her off, still fumbling with whatever he was clearly not supposed to be in, but she was having none of it.

"Uh-huh, where's my axe?"

"Oh! Let me get it for you!" He replied as he closed the chest and bound out of the room.

'That was way too easy…' she thought with a shake of her head as she reopened the chest to see what Gustav had been snooping in. They were old drawings of various things from people to landscapes to detailed schematics of complicated looking contraptions.

'What…? Who's are-'

"Hey! Get out of those! No one is allowed in them!" He said as he quickly approached her.

"Then why were _you_? I doubt these are yours," She replied while holding him at arm's length by the forehead while he struggled to reach for the chest.

"They're Hiccup's old drawings and Gobber doesn't want anyone to ruin them!"

"So then-"

"YES! I was snooping, alright?!" He finally stopped struggling as he said this. "But come on, look at these, they're kind of cool!"

"Right, you're too young to remember how much trouble he caused all the time…"

"No really! Look at this! This looks like it could actually be helpful!" He said as he held up a particular piece of paper that looked like the design and calculations were only half finished. The machine itself kind of looked like a giant crossbow on wheels, but there was just enough detail to see that it was meant to launch a net or bola. Hmm…

She studied it carefully, her mind filling in whatever blanks it could, which wasn't much with her lack of knowledge in the building arts, but the more she looked at it, the more she saw potential.

'We might be able to get the upper hand with something like this…' She thought, only now registering that Gustav was babbling away in her ear.

"-and then this one looks like it could make farming a LOT easier, and-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, Gustav, would you be able to make something like this?" She cut him off.

"ME? Heck no. Gobber said Hiccup was a prodigy with this stuff, I can barely understand any of these building plans, but the drawings are cool!"

"Hmm…I wonder if Gobber might be able to build it then…" She said thoughtfully.

"Ha! Good luck getting him to listen after he finds out you were in Hiccup's stuff."

"I wasn't. I just came for my axe, remember? YOU were the one who was snooping, all I have to do is say so…"

"You wouldn't…"

"Try me…"

"…"

"…"

"…Fine, but I'm calling you out if I get punished," he said after a moment.

"Fine…" She agreed. It wasn't like Gobber would do anything to her, honestly. She grabbed her axe that Gustav had left by the doorway when he came back in and exited the building, still mulling the situation over. A device like that really could give them an advantage. What dragon is going to expect getting hit with a net or bola suddenly launched at them at high speed? They might be able to get somewhere, she just had to get Gobber on board… without him getting mad…

That evening, she found herself in the Great Hall for dinner, seating herself on the other side of the table Fishlegs sat at. The burly young man having about three times as much food on his plate than one should consider sane, and a book off to the side that he was reading while he ate.

"Hey Fishlegs," She said as she sat and began with her own food.

"Hey Astrid," He replied, not looking up from his book. Astrid recognized it after a moment as the dragon manual.

"Don't you know that book word for word by now? Why are you reading it again?"

"Hmm? Oh, I'm going back over it to see if anything pops out. Something about the recent raids has been bothering me and I'm trying to see if there are any clues in any of the manuals we have."

"You noticed to, huh?"

"How could I not? It's like their getting smarter or something. Their attacks are way too methodical, and I don't believe it to be a chance happening, because…come on, why now? Why not sooner, if they're so smart…?"

"Ok, so what are your thoughts then?" She asked, a little more interested, ignoring her food for the moment. Just as he was about to answer, Snotlout slid right up to Astrid, his hip meeting hers on the bench, while wearing his most flirtatious smirk, which really wasn't saying much. Mistake number one.

"Hey babe, what'cha talkin' about over here? Is it me?" He asked, getting uncomfortably close. 'Oh, for the love of Thor…' Mistake number two.

"Yeah, I was just talking about how I'd like to shove you into a barrel of yak dung and roll you off a cliff…" She replied.

"OH! Can we help?!" She looked over and saw Ruffnut and Tuffnut bounding over to include themselves in the conversation. All Astrid could do was sigh. Ruffnut she could handle fine, they were best friends. Tuffnut, she could handle just fine, he was an idiot. Both together though, got a bit more annoying to deal with. Over the years Ruffnut had become the brains of their shenanigans while her brother was the master of execution, and _both_ have become masters of stealth. Together, they made a rather dangerous team, much to the chagrin of the village.

Snotlout just blew the comment off and swung his arm around Astrid's shoulders. And that makes mistake number three.

"Come on babe, you don't mean tha-OW! OW! OW! OW!" His sentence was cut off by cries of pain as Astrid seized his arm and twisted it backward as she swung around and kneed him in the gut, then knocked him in the back of the head in rapid succession. Snotlout hit the floor with a hard thud, and then didn't move. Apparently she hit him hard enough to knock him unconscious. 'Good. I'll get a break then.'

The twins just sat on the sidelines laughing like crazy.

"Awesome," Tuffnut manage to choke out in between laughter. Fishlegs just sat there cringing, imagining how much that must've hurt. Astrid turned back to Fishlegs at the table to address him.

"You were saying?" she said blankly.

"Huh? Oh yeah! Uhm… the dragons. Right," He managed to get out. He didn't have a problem talking to Astrid in general, it was just when she was irritated, she was intimidating, and he knew when it wasn't wise to make her any madder. "So I was saying that maybe there is some kind of outside influence on them. Dragons are mindless predators by nature, and predators don't change hunting tactics unless they're forced to. Not that you can really call it hunting, they just steal what _we_ hunted. What's bothering me is how smart these tactic changes are looking, and I don't think it's just a coincidence."

"Wouldn't that imply that the outside influence is human related? That there's the slimmest chance that they're trainable? I somehow doubt this…" She replied, crossing her arms.

"Oooooh, how cool would it be to have a trained dragon?" Ruffnut said, seemingly excited by the concept.

"Twice the chaos in half the time!" Her brother chimed in, just as enthusiastically. Astrid gave them a blank look, while Fishlegs looked at them with wide eyes and a raised eyebrow in question.

"…Anyway?..." Fishlegs started slowly. "That's why I was looking through the dragon manual again. I'm trying to see if there would be anything to suggest any kind of biological reason for this kind of behavioral change."

"And?" Astrid asked.

"And nothing. There isn't anything in here to suggest anything about them being intelligent enough to make such a change in their attack patterns on their own. I mean Bork spelled it out pretty well, every one of them is a mindless predator that kills on sight."

"Wait, so how are they acting so smart then?" Ruffnut chimed in, confused, but finally catching up in the conversation.

"I don't know, this is what I'm stumped on," Fishlegs replied while resting his chin on his fist and looking back at his book thoughtfully. There was a moment of silence before Astrid broke it again with a question.

"Hey Fish, how well do you think you knew Hiccup before he disappeared?" This question received three raised eyebrows in response.

"That…came out of nowhere," Tuffnut pointed out.

"I know, but I was just wondering. I recently found something out about him that I didn't know back then," She replied.

"Hmm…We didn't spend _too_ much time together. I mean, we were friends earlier on, but my parents didn't want me spending too much time around him. So I can't really say I knew him _that_ well. Personally, anyway." The only response he got was a thoughtful hum. "What brought that on?"

"Huh? Oh. I went to pick up my axe from the forge, and I found Gustav snooping around in the back room, looking at some old papers that he said Gobber told him were Hiccup's."

"Papers with what?"

"Drawings mostly. People and landscapes. He apparently had some designs in mind for some contraptions to build also, so there were some schematics in the mix with some crazy calculations. Just made me wonder how smart he actually was, cause I didn't know about those until this morning."

"OOOH! Anything look like it could cause chaos?" Tuffnut pipped up, earning an eye roll from Astrid as she answered.

"Done right, they'd probably be helpful. But with the track record Hiccup had back then for getting into trouble? I think if he'd tried to make them, something was bound to go horribly wrong."

"What kind of contraptions?" Fishlegs asked.

"Various. Anything from farming to battle usage. It just got me thinking is all."

"What? You feeling guilty about not knowing him well enough?" Ruffnut asked teasingly.

"I'm not feeling _guilty_ , it just made me see how much I _didn't_ know. That's all."

"Yeah, I mean, I knew he liked to draw, but I didn't know to what extent or _what_ he liked to draw," Fishlegs added. At this point in the conversation, Snotlout began regaining consciousness.

"Alright, catch you guys later," Astrid said as she noticed movement from the man on the floor. She left her plate on the table and headed for the door, stepping on Snotlout's back in the process, earning a harsh grunt of pain from him.

"…Can we still dip him in yak dung?" Tuffnut asked quietly. Fishlegs just rolled his eyes and shut his book while he began to get up.

"Knock yourselves out," he said before walking away, prompting mischievous smirks from both twins while they simply looked down at Snotlout, whom was still on the floor, groaning in pain.

The following morning found Astrid walking back over to the forge to see if Gustav kept his promise. Apparently he did, because the boy in question was currently giving the entire forge a deep clean while Gobber stood off to the side.

"Hey Gobber," She said as she approached.

"Hi lassie," Gobber said with a light smile.

"What's going on here?"

"Oh, just givin' Gustav some more chores t' do around the forge, since 'e apparently didn't 'ave enough to keep 'im busy yesterday…"

"I take it he talked to you about it then?"

"Ay," he responded while turning toward the girl. "Which brings me to th' fact that you were also snooping."

"Actually, I just swung by to get my axe. He didn't answer when I called for him, so I went looking and found him in the back room. The only thing I touched was the one drawing. I'll sharpen some swords for you if you want."

"Nah, it's alright lass," he replied while he turned and hobbled over to a table with Astrid in tow. She received an accusatory look from Gustav and I quiet "traitor" as she passed. She simply smirked.

"So do you think you can build it?" She asked as she came up behind him, now seeing that he was looking over the schematic in question on the table.

"Well, Hiccup 'ad a complicated mind sometimes. He used to draw stuff like this, and then babble on about wha' it's gonna do, how it works and how it will help. They always seemed a lit'le outlandish, but I didn't discourage him from it. It kep' him busy and ou' of trouble, and I could still keep an eye on 'im, so it was a win-win."

"I didn't even know he used to do stuff like this until yesterday… So you don't think you can make it?"

"I didn' say tha'. It may take me a little time, bu' I need to look it over and fill in some blanks and actually make it realistically buildable. I jus' might pull it off, but it's no' gonna be my highest work priority."

"I understand… So, he just sat in the back room and drew and planned all the time?" Gobber laughed lightly at the question.

"Only some of the time. He'd stay in the back room when 'e was in the village. He liked to draw an' design yes, but for some reason a majority of his time for a while was spent in the woods."

"The woods? Why?"

"I dunno. He liked the alone time I guess. I tried to get 'im to stop doin' it, but he never listened. Stubborn as his father in that regard. He never seemed to get lost or hurt or anythin' so I just gave up and le' him be. He always came back fine as he left anyway… Well, until…" He stood for a moment with a faraway look mixed with a little sadness, but he covered it up as he turned to look at Astrid. "Why so curious abou' him all of a sudden?"

"No reason," she answered as she turned to walk away from the forge. "Let me know if you get any work done on it."

"Alright…" He replied with a suspicious look, but he didn't question any further. He turned his attention back to Gustav. "AH, ya missed a spot t' yer left."

* * *

Meanwhile, somewhere Southwest of Berk.

Hiccup and Arman laid low on the dragon's backs as they dove downward toward the ocean below them, lined one after the other. Keh-Teh shot a blast into the water directly into a school of fish and then glided along the surface of the water making a slow curve back around, wing tip almost touching the water. Keh-Nah was right behind him and picked up two large fish out of the stunned school and then followed Keh-Teh in a wide arch back toward the fish. Arman leaned down and grabbed both fish and held them up for Hiccup to see while he called out.

"Breakfast anyone?!" he shouted loud enough for Hiccup to hear, earning a loud "Whoop!" in return. Both dragons swooped back down and got a mouthful of fish, then repeated the process a couple of times before turning back toward the island they had settled on for the night. Upon landing back in their camp, the two brothers dismounted their saddles and walked back over to the dying fire pit and stoked the coals and added a couple more pieces of wood to get a small flame going again to retain the heat. At the same time, Arman cleaned the fish and wrapped them in some seaweed that he had collected prior to their leaving to get food, a cooking trick they had learned from a friend of theirs a while back, and he laid them right on the coals and left them to cook. Both brothers settled beside the fire, the dragons laying down and becoming their backrests, and waited for the fish to cook.

"Hey, I've been thinkin'," Arman started suddenly.

"That's dangerous…" Hiccup replied with a chuckle, earning a light hearted flick in the ear from his brother.

"Seriously. I've been thinkin', after we finish with this trip, we're already pretty far north. We should swing up and visit the nest."

"We could. It's been a while, huh?"

"It has. I think they'd appreciate a visit, since we're in the area anyway."

"Alright, fine with me," Hiccup said as he stirred the coals a little around the fish.

"You know, since we're this far north, out of curiosity, you ever think about Berk anymore?" the question earned a snort from Hiccup.

"I try not to."

"So you wouldn't want to go back for any reason at all?"

"Why? It's been over 14 years Arman. They probably think I'm dead, and that's perfectly fine with me. The only thing that kept me sane on that island was Ah-Mah, and occasionally Gobber. I have no interest in reconciling with anyone else there."

"Ouch."

"I'm sorry, but when you're that young and you're treated like crap, you tend to harbor those kinds of feelings for a while afterward." The comment was followed by silence with only the background noise of their surroundings. Waves hit the shore in a slow pattern with the tide, birds called out in the morning sun, the wind gently blew through the trees, and the small fire crackled away while cooking their breakfast.

"You ever think about what their reactions would be if you went back?"

"Probably shock that I'm still alive, along with disappointment, and probably annoyance at my presence in general."

"Oh come on, you said it yourself, it's been 14 years…"

"And?"

"And, maybe things would be different than you think."

"Hmm. Ok, I'll just show up out of the blue riding a Night Fury and be like 'Hey guys, I'm back! I didn't die after all! By the way this is my brother Arman and the Night Furies we grew up with! How have things been around here?'…" He said with sarcasm dripping from every word. "Yes I'm sure that would be VERY well received in the place that makes trophies out of dragon heads and didn't like my presence to begin with…"

"Just saying," Arman replied with a shrug, "maybe it wouldn't go that way."

"I'm perfectly happy with the way my life is now, thank you. I'm not about to ruin it by stirring things up with my past…"

By this point, the fish were pretty much done, and the two began to eat.

"I still think you should think about going back, even just a fly by to see how things are."

"Why do you bring this up _every_ time we're up in this area?"

"Because they're family, whether you want to acknowledge that or not. You left when you were 11, for all you know, they could feel guilty about treating you the way they did, and you wouldn't know if they did or not because you refuse to even look in their direction." Arman's comment was followed by silence from Hiccup.

"You have family that you have an opportunity to reconnect with. We've lost a lot of loved ones over the past few years. There's not enough time in the world to shut out family because of past mistakes." Hiccup remained silent, slowly chewing his food.

"You know, I don't have any family to try to contact anymore. Everyone from my past is gone, Keh-Nah, You and Keh-Teh were a chance presented to me that I took, because I had nothing left. I had no problem leaving because I had no one. You, the dragons, the kids, the village; you guys are my family now. All I'm saying is that if it weren't for life giving us second chances, everyone would just be alone all the time."

"But I'm not alone…"

"Because you took your chance at having something that you felt worth for by leaving with Keh-Teh. Maybe Berk deserves their second chance with you now…"

"But would they take the chance if presented with it?" Hiccup asked as he looked over at Arman, earning a shrug.

"Only way to know is to present it to them." This was followed by silence while Hiccup looked down thoughtfully. After a few moments, he finally broke the silence.

"I don't know if I can," He said, shaking his head. Before Arman could respond Hiccup stood up, leaving his half eaten fish by the fire, and began repacking items he had taken out of his bag. "Come on, we need to get going if we want to reach Spek before high noon."

Arman simply sat, looking out to the horizon thoughtfully for a moment, before finally supplying a quiet "ok", before repacking his own bag.

* * *

' _How the heck do I wind up in these situations?!' the boy thought as he ran from the black dragon that was easily twice his size. How he wound up in this crazy game of cat and mouse tag was beyond him. One minute both dragons were just staring at him, the white one having approached him and sniffed him briefly. And the next minute there was a black blur across his vision and the first thing he'd done was take off across the cove with the smaller of the two in tow. This went on for several minutes, before the boy was finally too tired to keep running, much to the dragon's disappointment._

 _He'd flopped on the ground with a tired grunt, flipping over onto his back and lay there motionless for a moment, prompting the dragon to carefully approach and sniff him. After a moment of silence, and not getting attacked, the boy peeked an eye open just slightly to see the dragon looking him over curiously, whining slightly, like a puppy whose favorite toy was just taken away. He closed his eye just as the dragon sniffed his chest and moved up to sniff his face. After a second, the boy blew a big puff of air on the dragon's nose, causing it to suddenly pull back and then bound around in circles for a moment, as if he was chasing his tail, before stopping and facing Hiccup again, once again crouching low. Looking at the two from where he lay on the ground, he had come to the conclusion that they were most likely mother and offspring. He sat up and turned his attention back to the younger of the two, crouched low with a playful gleam in its eyes and its tail swaying slightly behind it. Truthfully, it looked like a kitten on the prowl._

" _You're not gonna hurt me, are you?" He heard himself saying. The young dragon simply cocked his head sideways, but the shock came when the older white one shook her head, clearly answering the question. He sat there stunned for a moment, thinking back to the first time he'd met the dragon. He'd always thought he'd imagined the dragon's understanding of his words, thinking that perhaps it had simply made a movement that resembled acknowledgment. Though he'd never questioned its intelligence, it was clearly very smart, HE mind was just trying to break down the fact he'd been told prior that dragons were mindless killers. Yet here it was, with no clear intention to hurt him, blatantly responding to his question to the younger one. That being said, it didn't look as if the younger of the two had the same understanding as its mother. So he turned his attention back to her._

" _You…can you_ really _understand what I'm saying?" He asked aloud, once again receiving an affirmation of understanding. The dragon nodded her head. Glancing over at her youngling, making Hiccup follow her line of sight before looking back at her, she shook her head._

" _No? …no….he can't understand me? Or…?" She nodded her head, indicating his guess was correct. He couldn't help but smile. 'This is so cool!' he turned his head toward the younger dragon, still smiling, and it cocked its head to the other side. Then, to his surprise, its lips parted as it mimicked his smile, showing a mouth full of gums._

" _Huh? Toothless? That's kind of funny!" He said with a laugh. "I could have sworn you had teeth though…"_

 _This comment earned a snort from the white dragon following by a short series of growls. Apparently she had relayed the comment to the younger one, because in the next second the boy found himself pinned on his back on the ground staring up at a growling black dragon, its mouth now clearly having teeth in it._

" _Ok, I take it back! I'm sorry! Fierce! You're very fierce!" The white dragon let out a light sound that somewhat resembled a laugh, then walked over and nudged the younger one while emitting a softer growl, urging the younger to let him up._

 _Upon standing up, he looked over at the two, and only then realized how low the sun had gotten, and he looked up to see the sky was now changing color. 'Have I really been out that long?'_

 _The white Dragon seemed to catch on to his train of thought, and made a sound to get his attention. When he turned his attention back to her, she motioned toward her back with her head, then cocked her head sideways upon looking back at him, indicating it was a question. It took her repeating the gesture for him to try to guess at what she was telling him._

" _You're… asking if I want a ride on your back?" He guess, receiving a nod, and she glanced back in the direction of the village. She repeated the gesture a couple of times before he finally understood what she was doing._

"… _OH! You're asking if I want you to take me home!" He guessed again, receiving a nod._

" _Sure, um…if you wouldn't mind that is…" He said back, just making sure it was fully alright. Upon receiving a nod he carefully approached her and climbed onto her back as she bent down to allow him to do so. After getting situated, he wound up taking a second to marvel at the feeling of being on the dragon's back. Sure, he'd ridden before, but he was a little too afraid and confused of the situation to really think about it. He was expecting her to_ walk _him home, like last time, but instead, she took off with a leap and climbed into the air briefly, while the boy squeezed his eyes shut and held on for dear life, completely taken aback by the sudden take off. He hesitantly opened his eyes as they leveled off and he looked around, completely blown away by the view he was presented with. They weren't very high above the tree line, in fact he could probably reach the tree tops if he hung upside down from this height, but it was still amazing to be in the air with the land zipping underneath him. The clouds were lit up in the evening light and the sky was turning pink and orange from the sun setting beyond the horizon. A sound behind him caught his attention and he looked back to see that the other had followed them when they took off, gliding just behind him over his head._

 _The dragon angled herself downward after about a minute and glided through an opening in the trees until she angled her body back up to land properly, her youngling just behind her, albeit a little less gracefully. She bent down, and he carefully slid off of her back, still reeling a little from being in the air. He walked toward the tree line a few steps before turning back to say something. Unfortunately, upon turning he tripped and stumbled backwards, barely able to catch himself, and winding up outside of the brush of the woods and out in the open. When he looked up again, he didn't see either dragon, and was about to walk back into the trees to see if they were still there when a voice called out to him._

" _Hiccup! THERE you are! Get yer hiney back to the forge and finish wha' I gave you t' do this mornin'!"_

 _The boy, Hiccup, looked behind him to see Gobber, the village's black smith hobbling in his direction on his peg leg and waving his hook hand in a scolding manner, probably to drag him back to the forge, since he kind of abandoned his chores upon getting chased by Snotlout and the twins. When he looked back he still didn't see the dragons. Assuming they'd gone back to the cove, he turned and walked back toward Gobber, whom then escorted him back to the forge, completely unaware of the pair of green eyes that were hidden in the brush, watching them leave._

* * *

 **Saoirse (SEER-sha)  
Aodhan (EYE-don)  
Meara (MEER-uh)  
Keh-Teh (Neh-oo-keh-teh): Toothless  
Keh-Nah (Ehs-teh-keh-nah)  
Y'all know who everyone else is. **

**Author's note** : Alrighty, well this chapter actually went a little differently as I wrote it than I originally intended… But I like it anyway! Hiccup and Arman got a little deep in their conversation and we get a little glimpse into Hiccup's feelings with his past. I will be touching on Arman a little more in future chapters, so we'll be getting to know him a bit more later.

So, I kind of depict Astrid and Fishlegs as being a little more serious, but Fishlegs being no less of a dragon nerd. Snotlout gets more obnoxious and the twins are pretty much the same here.

I am also finding that Draken names seem to flow easier when I write them out this way, so I think I'm just going to continue with it. However I am presented with the challenge of figuring out how to write out full sentences written in Draken, as writing everything out phonetically may get kind of long o_o'… so if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know, it'd be great. Thanks!

If anyone has any constructive criticism, please don't be afraid to share. I do value what you guys think, and I want this to not only read smoothly, but also be enjoyable to read. I will also be happy to answer any questions you may have, just not with too much detail toward the plot line, as I really don't want to give too much away before the story gets to it ;)

If you guys have read all the way to this point, once again, I thank you much! And appreciate the time you give to my end of chapter ramblings. XD

Next chapter, we meet the good people of Spek!

Till next time!


	4. Ch 4: Mysteries

**Welcome back guys! If you're still following the story, thank you much! I actually don't have any beginning comments, so let's just skip to the disclaimer! (Or you know, skip over it, cause I know you guys don't read it anyway, but I have to put it there so…)**

 **Disclaimer: None of the How to Train Your Dragon characters belong to me! They all belong to the wonderful character design team at DreamWorks studios that worked on the movie. The characters you do** _ **not**_ **recognize however, are all of my own creation, as well as the language that appears in this story.**

 **Now onwards! To Chapter Four!**

* * *

It was just before high noon when Hiccup and Arman saw the silhouette of Spek on the horizon. The air between the two brothers was a little tense since their earlier chat at breakfast, but the sighting of their destination helped bring the tension back down as Keh-Teh and Keh-Nah flew close to the water at high speed, each leaving a rooster tail in the water behind them. Deciding to make a dramatic entrance, the dragons curved upward and climbed until they were high up and directly over the village, before arching backwards and falling into a nose dive back down, the wind whistling through their folded wings as they plummeted. Charging a weak fire-blast at the back of their throats, they sounded their arrival with the signature high-pitched sound that caused many people to look upward as they came in, both in recognition of the sound of an incoming Night Fury, and simple curiosity. They pulled up just in time to parallel themselves with the ground and zip through the buildings while twisting their bodies in a spiral. They finally pulled up enough to slow their speed and land with as much grace as they could possibly pull off.

The two brothers, having caught on around the nose dive to what the dragons were up to, decided to add their own flare on the dismount, each flipping off their respective transport's backs in time with each other and sticking the landing perfectly, and added a swooping bow at the end.

"Guess who's back!" Arman shouted, receiving mixed replies ranging from an eye roll and a light hearted groan from the villagers that knew them, as well as a mixture of stunned silence and large applause from anyone who had no idea who they were, but enjoyed their showy entry, with a few who looked like they were recovering from a heart attack caused by their approach.

"Odin help us, they've returned!" said an elderly, but distinctly female voice from behind them. Arman, without missing a beat, spun around and held his fists up dramatically in response.

"With a vengeance!" He shouted.

"Missed you to Edda!" was Hiccup's simple reply. Said woman, Edda, came walking up with her arms out beckoning for a hug from the brothers, both of whom complied.

"Oh hello you two!" Edda said enthusiastically, earning a snort from the dragons, making her turn her attention to them for a greeting.

"You _four,_ rather," she corrected herself. "And how are _you_ two?" She asked them while giving both a scratch, earning a rumbling purr from both in doing so. She's always been fascinated with dragons in general, so she was incredibly thrilled when she had met Hiccup and Arman when they were about 13, when they came flying in on not one, but _two_ Night Furies. Her aged, but still bright, stormy grey eyes sparkled in remembering those times, when the boys were younger. She herself always had a youthful air about her, despite being old enough to be their Grandmother. Her silvery hair, with barely a trace of the dark brown it was before, was pulled back in a low but flowing ponytail, tied with a leather string with beads at the end of it. She wore a simple dress with an apron over it that had pockets full of sewing supplies, as she was the village's seamstress.

"We're all doing pretty well, how have _you_ been?" Hiccup replied to the woman, drawing her attention back from the dragons.

"Oh, just fine!" Edda replied with a smile, "So what brings you boys here out of the blue?"

"Chief Ewen actually asked us to swing by. Something about issues with the local dragons?"

"Oh, I see. Always work, never a social visit," She replied with a playful pout, prompting a chuckle from the two.

"I promise we'll have time to socialize after we take care of whatever's going on," Arman chimed in.

"I'll hold you to that now, you hear?"

"Yes Miss Edda," both answered in unison with matching smiles, making the older woman chuckle. 'They still address me that way, after so long,' she thought to herself with a light chuckle.

"Now then, are you two tired from your trip? I can make you something to eat if you'd like?" She asked them sweetly.

"Not too tired, we got a later start this morning. I could go for some lunch though," Arman replied with a smile.

"We need to talk to the chief first, and then we'll be back around. Any idea where we'd find him?" Hiccup chimed in before Arman got his heart too set on food.

"Hmm, I think he should be over by the eastern pastures. That's where I last saw he was off to."

"OK, we'll head that way then. Thank you Edda," Hiccup said.

"Now hold on a moment you two. How long are you staying this time around?"

"Uh, not really sure. However long it takes to figure out what's up," Arman said with a shrug.

"Alright then, I'll prepare your old room for you. You can leave your bags inside if you want."

"Are you sure? You don't have to-" Hiccup started.

"Nonsense, young man. You four are always welcome around my home, and you know it," Edda insisted, "Now leave whatever you want to inside before you find the chief, and I'll get the room set up for you, and have lunch ready by the time you get back."

"Alright, Thanks again," Hiccup said with a smile. Both brothers took their bags off of their saddles and placed them in their old room, which is now used as a spare room in Edda's hut, each choosing one of the two beds, and then gave her another hug before taking off towards the eastern pastures of the village.

When they arrived, the chief was in the middle of berating two young boys, for what they assumed was the mess behind them. The pasture fences were completely destroyed and animals were everywhere, running from the people trying to round them up. Upon hearing the dragons approaching, the kids looked up, rather startled by their appearance, while the chief couldn't hold back a smile.

"Well, well, well," The chief started with a hardy laugh, "Look who we have here!"

"Chief! Good to see ya!" Arman shouted back as they landed. The two boys having no idea how to react to the dragons' presence. The village itself was near a hefty population of dragons, but the two communities pretty much just left each other alone. Same going for any other villages in the near area, so seeing dragons, with riders no less, just fly in and land right in front of them was a little jarring for anyone who hadn't seen it before.

"For once I can say it's good to see you to!" The chief replied. He was a hefty man, gruff at a first glance, but fairly easy to get along with if you respect him. His short, tussled black hair and beard looked completely untamable and his dark grey eyes held a stern expression almost all of the time. It was a little off putting if you weren't too familiar with him.

"Hey now, Garik!" Hiccup joined in with a laugh. "So what've we got going on _here_?" He asked, gesturing to the mess of a pasture.

"Oh, these two trouble makers decided it would be funny if they let all the livestock loose," Chief Garik replied, with his stern look returning when he turned his head back to the two, who froze when they realized they were caught in trying to sneak away during the conversation. The two looked about 13 or 14, one had brown hair and blue-green eyes, and was the taller of the two. The other had blond hair with the same blue-green eyes and was shorter by only a couple of inches. Looking at their facial features, however, the two looked like brothers.

" _That_ sounds familiar," Arman chimed in, "Remember when _we_ did that?"

"Did you use the dragons to do it?!" The shorter one asked.

"Was it awesome?!" The other followed up with immediately. Hiccup gave them a stern look, falling into what Arman deemed early on as "dad mode".

"Only we did it on _accident_ ," Hiccup said to them. "And we took responsibility for it and cleaned up the mess it caused." The two looked a little ashamed of themselves, but not enough to be let off the hook.

"I found myself questioning whether it was an accident or not when it came to you two more often than not. With _these_ two however," he reached out and pulled them in front of him with one hand on each of each boy's shoulder, "I know for a fact that they did it on purpose, as a joke. Guess who gets to clean the barns for the next week?" the question being directed at the two in hand, prompting both boys to groan.

"Bolek!" He shouted while turning around to the man he was addressing.

"Yes chief?" A slim but strong looking man responded, many of his features bearing a striking resemblance to the chief himself.

"You're in charge of these two for now. Make sure they two help in rounding up all of the remaining animals, and then make sure they get to the barns and clean them well."

"Yes Chief," He responded, then took the boys from Garik's grasp and escorted them away, but not before catching site of the two riders and waving enthusiastically with a smile.

"There is _no_ way that _that_ is the Bolek we remember…" Arman said as said man walked away with the teens in tow. "What happened to snarky, juvenile, 'I'm-better-then-you' Bolek?" This earned a chuckle from the chief.

"Yes, my son has matured quite bit since the last time you saw him. Even got married and finally started taking his position as heir seriously, instead of flaunting it as a status," Garik said before turning back around to face the brothers.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, _Bolek_ got _married_? To _who_?" Hiccup asked, rather incredulously.

"And _when_?" Arman chimed in, then turned to Hiccup. "I didn't think he'd settle for anyone less than _Muirne_ after you stole her out from under him."

"I did not _steal_ her out from under him. I won her hand fair and square. She didn't want to marry Bolek anyway."

"Oh, about a year ago, a village a little further west of here offered a marriage between our heirs to tie together an alliance we had been striving towards. Sweet girl, and very strong willed. I have come to respect her quite highly the longer I know her. She got ahold of my son and managed to bring him back down to size. He's actually a respectable young man now. You two have done quite a bit of maturing yourselves over the years. Last time I saw you, you almost blew up the forge with, what was it? Zippleback gas?"

"Yeah, it was Zippleback gas," Hiccup nodded, smiling at the memory. "I also recall that you almost immediately sent me off to another village."

"From a sibling village that had requested assistance in the building of their newest base," the chief continued.

"See you _say_ that, but your eyes tell me you just wanted me out of your hair," Hiccup replied laughing. The chief light heartedly raised his hands in surrender.

"Alright, that may have been _part_ of it. Now then, to jump into business, you're here about the dragons." He asked.

"Yes sir. Chief Ewen sent us over to have a look at what's been going on, upon, apparently, unanimous request," Hiccup responded.

"Well you two are the go-to experts for this kind of thing, so we figured you could help."

"I wouldn't go quite _that_ far, but we'll still see what we can do," Arman replied.

"Excellent. We'll speak back at my hut then," The chief said as he began walking in the direction of his home, only a few minutes away on foot.

Upon arriving at the chief's hut, the dragons stayed outside, having learned their lesson the _last_ time they tried to both fit in the chief's hut, which didn't end well mind you, while everyone else went in and took a seat at the table, the chief's wife, Eira, greeting them happily as they came in with a bright smile and sparkling ocean blue eyes.

"And how have you two trouble makers been?" she asked.

"Quite well, Miss Eira, and yourself?" Arman answered.

"Wonderful," She replied. She was going to continue the conversation, but a familiar look from her husband made her stop. 'They're here on business' is what the look said, and she politely excused herself from the room to tend to some chores her curly brown hair swooshing behind her all the while.

"Alright," Hiccup begun, "Now then, let's start with the happenings with the ships, yeah?"

"Well, a lot of the ships that we send off toward the east have been returning with some kind of damage, and report seeing dragons flying overhead, some of which attack the passing ships."

"Any provoking causing that?" Arman asked, both brothers leaning forward and listening attentively.

"None that I've heard. Everyone says the attacks are random."

"What about the extent of the damage?"

"Varies. We haven't seen any sort of pattern with it. Some only have minor damage, while others have had to turn tail and are barely able to make it back into port.

"Any injuries or deaths in the wake?" Hiccup asked. Garik was silent for a moment while he thought.

"…None that I know of. Those who report say the ships are hit, but the people remain relatively unharmed, save for maybe any injuries caused by the resulting debris. It's making it rather difficult to reach our neighboring islands in that direction." Both brothers were quiet in thought for a moment.

"Does this happen when ships go in any other direction from the island?" Hiccup asked.

"…Sometimes when we send them a little further North, but not too often, mostly when they go East." This received simple nods in reply.

"Any aggression happening toward the residents here?" Arman asked.

"As far as I can tell, they pretty much leave the village alone. It's only the ships."

"Are any other villages in the area having the same or similar issues?"

"Only a couple that I've heard, coming from those I've contacted. There are some I haven't contacted as of yet that I couldn't be sure if they are or not, but I would assume they are."

"Ok, who are they?"

"Kragen, Banko and Brahn are the ones I've spoken to."

"Ok. Well, do you mind if we stay on the island for a few days? See what we can find?" Hiccup asked.

"Sure, do you need me to make some accommodations?"

"No thank you sir, we're staying at Edda's," Armin chimed in as they all stood up and began walking back to the door.

"Alright, well let me know if you need anything."

"Actually, is there anyone we can talk to that were on any of the ships that were attacked?"

"Yes actually, they're regular crew members for the trade ships, so they'll be returning tomorrow from a westbound trip."

"Perfect. Thank you chief," Hiccup said as the brothers and dragons walked down the walkway, away from the chief's hut, and start back toward Edda's hut.

"Well, this is interesting," Arman said to his brother while they walked.

"Yup, but I wouldn't draw any conclusions until we talk to the crew. I want to get the details from those who saw it first hand before putting any pieces together," Hiccup replied.

After walking a little longer, they arrived back at Edda's, where all four walked inside, the dragons maneuvering around the furniture to an empty corner and laying down. Unlike the chief's hut, Edda's had a bit more room inside for them to move around, due to lack of large furniture, so they didn't mind coming inside and laying in the corner.

"Hello boys! I reheated a roast over the fire here and there's some bread on the table, and there's a barrel of fish out back that I managed to have someone get from the docks for you two," Edda said in her usual cheery tone, the last part of the statement being directed to the dragons. Said dragons immediately got up and clambered out the open back door, all too happy to chow down on some fresh fish.

"So how'd it go with the chief? Get what you needed?"

"Some. Looks like we'll be basing here for a few days to figure out what's going on. We're talking to the ship crews tomorrow when they come into port," Hiccup answered, how happily munching on the lunch that the woman prepared. "Thank you for lunch by the way, it's delicious." Arman nodding his head in agreement with both cheeks full of food.

"Of course! And you all are welcome to stay for as long as you need. Arman, don't put that much in your mouth or you'll choke."

This comment earned a snicker from Hiccup. 'And that's Edda for you.'

Arman slowed his chewing down and looked at his plate for a moment, and then tried to apologize.

"Sorry Miss Edda," is what _would_ have been said if his mouth wasn't full. So instead what came out was "so'y 'ish E'a" which prompted a scolding look from the woman as she told him not to speak with his mouth full.

Hiccup just laughed on the side, before turning and quietly addressing his brother.

"How old are you?" He asked. The only answer he got was a glare, considering his mouth was still full of food.

When they finished eating, they went to the spare room to get settled in for the duration of their stay, unpacking and laying out items they might need later, such as maps and books, one book half full of drawings and a pencil that Hiccup had brought along for pastime sketches. Arman however, pulled out a wooden object with holes along one side of it, about the length of his arm. Hiccup saw him pull it out, and couldn't help but laugh.

"Did you _seriously_ bring your flute?"

"I did!" Arman replied enthusiastically, immediately putting the instrument to his lips and playing a bouncy jig he learned early on when being taught how to play. He played only a little bit of it, ending his song after about 10 seconds. Hiccup just shook his head again with a smile playing across his face.

"You're so ridiculous," He said, still smiling.

"You're just jealous that you can't play it."

"No, I'm jealous you thought to bring your instrument. I should've brought my drum!"

"Awe, you really should have!" Both laughed for a moment after this was said.

"I bet I can borrow one from someone here. This is where I got my other one anyway."

"Or maybe we can swing by the trade market and see if anyone is selling any."

"Why would I buy another one?"

"Because you didn't bring yours, and their cheap here."

"…True." Arman couldn't help but laugh at this. Once the two finished unpacking, they stripped themselves of their flight gear and dressed into something more comfortable, and walked back out of the room.

"Oh there you are. Are you heading back out?" Edda asked upon their re-entry.

"Yeah, we might go check out the market a little. We can't really do anything until the ship crews come back tomorrow, so we figured we'd relax a little this evening," Hiccup replied. "Did you need us to stick around?"

"No, you can go, it's alright. The market is down the hill by the docks on the other side of the village," She said back with a dismissive wave.

"When did it move from the central market?"

"Oh, a few months ago, since it was easier for the traders to walk 20 feet from the docks rather than up a hill with their goods."

"Ah, gotcha. Down the hill by the docks then."

"Oh and be careful, if you're taking the dragons with you. We get traders coming in from outside our typical assortment of islands, some coming from rather rough areas. Not everyone down there will be dragon friendly."

"Ok, thank you," Arman said as they walked out the door.

"And be back in time for dinner!"

"Yes ma'am," they replied, as they set off toward where they were told the market was, the dragons jumping down from the roof, where they had decided to nap in the sunshine, and following them. It had been a couple years since they've gotten chance to really walk around the village and see any changes that have happened over the years, so they opted to walk instead of fly. Many familiar faces popped out to them and they had friendly chats, while others who they had never met seem to approach them in awe, asking about the dragons, while others avoided them altogether. It took away from the 'relaxing' part if they were being honest, but it was still a nice walk.

Once they finally got down to the trade market, they saw all kinds of items from everywhere on display. Spek was in the middle of a string of islands that roughly fell into an L shape, so they were considered neutral ground by the surrounding islands for merchants to set up a stall there to sell and trade, some even moving there permanently for the business it provides. This, of course, meant that trade was the main attribute for Spek in general, and what kept the village going and made it so diverse.

They continued their meandering from space to space, looking at everything that was offered, mostly staying on the outskirts of the market, due to the dragons being with them. They saw everything from jewelry and clothing, to metal and wood work. Arman even spotted a stall selling glasswork, which was rather hard to pull him away from. All the while getting a variety of looks as they walked. Two, fifteen hundred pound dragons following you around will have that effect, apparently. Near the end of the row they were at, however, they stopped at the sound of a familiar voice.

"Master Hiccup?" an accented voice called out from a booth to their left. The boys turned and immediately recognized the speaker's face.

"Johann!" Hiccup said with a smile. "Haven't seen you in years!" Johann had come across the boys while they were travelling not too far outside of the archipelago that Hiccup came from, only about a year following Hiccup's disappearance from Berk. It took a lot, but they finally convinced the trader to keep their existence quiet. For someone who talks so much, he seems to be able to keep a secret well enough. They gave him goods that they received from their travels all over the place in return, if they happen to catch him in passing, much to the trader's delight. However, since they've migrated their travels away from the area, and their lack of traveling past their allied villages in general as of recently, they haven't seen him in the past few years.

"Oh it _is_ you! Hello! Yes it has been quite a while hasn't it? Look at you! I don't think I would've recognized you without your dragons here," He said, pointing to said dragons currently sniffing around some of the booths, the poor merchants trying to shoo them away while trying not to look scared by their presence.

Hiccup and Arman took pity on them and Hiccup let out a sharp whistle, effectively getting both dragons' attention. He waved them over, basically telling them to leave the sellers alone, much to their awe and relief.

"Why do you always harass the foreigners when we swing into market places?"

" **Cause it's funny,"** Keh-nah said while Keh-teh laughed in agreement. Arman chuckled while Hiccup shook his head.

"You two are pests, you know that?"

The two simply looked at him for a moment, then Keh-nah gave him her biggest 'puppy' eyes and stuck out her tongue a little in mock innocence, while Keh-teh gave him his signature toothless grin, neither denying the comment in the slightest. Hiccup just laughed, briefly forgetting Johann was also standing there.

"You will never cease to amaze me. The way you interact with your dragons, and all," Johann said with a slight smile, not knowing that Keh-Nah had actually spoken to Hiccup. "Especially considering where you came from, Master Hiccup."

"Yeah, well, it's a matter of trust and respect is all," Hiccup replied.

"How come you haven't been back in that direction, by the way? I used to see you all the time."

"I, uh… We just haven't made it up that way in a while," He replied, Arman immediately catching the lie. They were up that way all the time, Hiccup just never wanted to go _that_ way. They typically went out and around if they needed to go in that direction. "But anyway, what are you doing this far west? I've seen you further south, but I didn't expect to see you at _this_ market."

"Oh, I've steadily been moving business further west for a couple years now. The dragons further east are causing real problems for any ships in the area."

"So you've been having issues with them as well then?" Arman chimed in, suddenly more curious.

"Wait, _years_? I thought the chief said this was more recent…" Hiccup cut in.

"Oh yes. They've been aggressive for a couple of years, but only recently have they gotten to the point of concern. They get real aggressive when anyone, that I've heard anyway, tries to head that way. The further you go, the more aggressive they get. I almost sunk off of an island just outside of Braknor, and let me tell you, _that_ was interesting, once I managed to get into that port. The locals there are always interesting though. One time I came in when I was passing through from-"

"Yeah yeah, Johann," Hiccup cut in before the trader could get too far gone in his story telling, "I'm sure that that is going to be an interesting story, but we'll listen to it later. Go back to the dragons for a second. By more aggressive, what do you mean?"

"Hmm? Oh. They attack more heavily. If you're further out west, they'll harass you a little and that's it. But the further east you go, the more they seem to intend to kill, dealing quite a lot of damage to the ships they target and the people aboard. I've been going east less and less because of that. I've lost too many goods from dragon attacks, so I've been moving my central point of business further west. They seem to leave you alone out here."

The boys stopped for a moment to think.

'The chief said he hadn't heard of any deaths from _his_ crews. It sounds like we're going to have to bounce around the islands and get some answers,' Hiccup's mind was officially going, thinking up every way to get to the bottom of what's going on. Both were silent for a few seconds until Arman broke the silence.

"Only when you go east? Not if you're going south, north or west?"

"Just East."

"Is it ever just one or two dragons? Or is it always a flock?"

"It's always a flock, whenever I've witnessed it myself."

"Hmm…" Hiccup hummed lightly, "And it was near _Braknor_ , you said you almost went down?"

"Yes sir, it was." Hiccup and Arman looked at each other for a moment.

"We may be flying over there tomorrow to see what else we can get, and see if we can figure out exactly where the dragons are coming from so we can have a look around," Hiccup thought out loud.

"We'd have to go at day break. Braknor is easily a six hour flight eastward. We can hit some of the other islands in the area in the way back, and then we can talk to the ship crews here if we still need to in the evening," Arman replied.

"If I wasn't so afraid of heights, I'd ask you to teach me to ride a dragon. It's almost 2 week trip by boat," Johann commented on the side. Hiccup just smirked.

"You never know if you'd like it or not unless you tried it Johann."

"I'll keep my feet on the ground, thank you…" This earned a snort from the dragons and a chuckle from the two brothers.

"Alright, thank you for the info Johann," Arman said as they turned to walk away. They didn't get far before Johann called out to them again.

"Now hold on, do either of you want anything? You can have whatever catches your eye, on me," He said while gesturing to his goods laid out across his stall.

"Oh, we can't do that Johann, we-" Arman started.

"Nonsense, you've given me plenty of valuables without trade in the past. Honestly, anything you want, and it's yours."

Hiccup looked at Arman for a moment, simply getting a shrug in response. Hiccup stepped forward and looked around, nothing really popping out at him for a few seconds, until his eyes landed on a familiar looking round and flat object. It had a wooden frame, about eight inches deep, and about 18 inches in diameter with animal hide tightly stretched over top of one side of the frame, leaving the flip side open, fastened to the frame by metal rivets. Hiccup smirked.

"I'll take that drum off your hands," He said as he pointed to said object. Arman just laughed.

* * *

Meanwhile, in Berk.

Astrid stood on top of a cliff that overlooked the docks, and watched the final preparations for the nest hunt take place among the ships lined across the docks. Fishlegs joined her after a few minutes of her being there.

"You're not going with them this time around?" He asked her. She just shook her head.

"We haven't gotten anywhere near it any time we set sail. The last few times, we haven't even really gotten to Helheim's gate. We get attacked before then. What makes the chief think we're ever going to find it, if we haven't been able to for the 300 years that Vikings have lived here?" She replied, still looking down on the ships.

"So you're giving up on the searches?"

"By this point, every search that goes out is just hoping to get lucky and stumble across something. I'm not going to just stand around and wait for luck. I'll focus on helping protect the village. At least I can do that much." Fishlegs nodded.

"I came to that conclusion a long time ago…" he responded. Both were silent for a moment, simply watching the ships began to cast off from the docks and set sail to their destination, the chief at the bow of the leading vessel, barking orders as they got under way.

"What are we going to do if we never find it, and the dragons keep going the way they are? We'll get wiped out in no time…" He continued.

"I have Gobber working on a project that will hopefully give us a little bit of an edge. At least here in the village."

"Oh?"

"Remember the drawings I told you about that Gustav found in Hiccup's old room at the forge?"

"Yeah?"

"Well one of them looked like it'd be rather useful if built correctly. Gobber was going to make some modifications to the design, so I was going to go see what he came up with this afternoon, if he worked on it at all…" Fishlegs seemed impressed for a moment.

"And this was _Hiccup's_ design?"

"According to Gobber, he drew stuff like that all the time. He's got all kind of designs in that room that he said belonged to Hiccup." Fishlegs hummed at this.

"Kind of makes you realize how little brain is appreciated in a community of brawn."

"Is that sympathy in your voice?"

"Well, _yeah_. I study up on dragons as much I possibly can with what's available to us, but no one cares how much I know as long as I'm a strong fighter. I was able to squeak by with muscle. Hiccup was a smart _twig,_ and no one has even acknowledged any potential from him until now," He said, now turning to face Astrid. "Think about it. If _you_ weren't as strong of a fighter as you are, you'd probably be in the same situation, because you're smart, but I recall you having a similar build as him when we were young. What saved you was your difference in smarts. Hiccup focused on working around his weaknesses, while your focus went into beating down any weakness until it was non-existent."

Though her mind grabbed onto what he was trying to get at, she was still a bit offended by the comparison. No matter how true the little voice in the back of her head claimed the statement was. Along with being strong, though, she was also extremely prideful.

" _Hiccup_ , was just that, Fishlegs. A hiccup. He had no will to parallel himself with us, and he spent his time either drawing or in the woods, and he _ran_ from the danger while everyone else faced it head-on. Do _not_ compare me to _him_!" She said as she walked away. Fishlegs, didn't take her outburst to heart. He'd known her long enough to know how proud she was. He knew he hit the intended mark regardless of her reaction. He turned his attention back toward the horizon, and watched the ships until they disappeared.

Thinking back though, truthfully, he had just spoken as the words came to mind, not all necessarily being true as there were other factors playing into the differences between them and Hiccup, but the statements still had the intended effect on Astrid. Though one thing that came out of his mouth continued to bounce around his head. Anyone with any smarts got by with having muscle as well. Hiccup had none, and was brushed aside for it, because no one paid enough attention to brain over brawn. Hiccup was extremely smart, and often isolated himself because of the lack of consideration he got with anything he tried to do. At one point he had even said that he never wanted to grow up to be dragon killer, which only added fuel to the fire. When he was asked why he changed his mind, the only answer he'd give was 'try looking closer and you might figure it out'.

That always confused everyone. No one could really figure out what he meant by that, but Fishlegs thought back to the times where he had the opportunity amidst his trainings to close the door on the world for a while and read, and how much he had gotten out of it. Hiccup did that a _lot_ more than he did. Fishlegs hummed thoughtfully. What had Hiccup known that no one else did?

'I wonder…' He thought, and he began making his way to the forge.

Upon entering the half rebuilt building, Fishlegs found Gobber working away on pieces for what he assumed was the weapon design Astrid had told him about, laying out on the table on the far side with already made pieces stacked around it, and Gustav could be seen sharpening swords at the other end of the forge.

"Hi Gobber," He said simply, causing the smith to look up mid swing of his hammer.

"Hi lad," He said, lowering his arm and turning to his visitor. "What can I do for ya?"

"I was actually wondering if you'd let me look at something…" He replied carefully, knowing how touchy the smith was about his previous apprentice. He and the chief had been hit the hardest by his disappearance, and it showed.

"Ay?" the smith replied while raising an eyebrow.

"Astrid told me you were working on something that would give us an advantage in the raids that was designed by Hiccup." This received a stern look, but Fishlegs continued before the smith could respond. "The conversation we had shortly after made me think of something, and I was wondering if I might be able to look at his other drawings?"

Gobber didn't respond for a minute, so he once again pressed carefully.

"You can even stay in the room while I look, and I'll make sure everything stays intact, I promise."

There was another moment of silence before Gobber finally, albeit hesitantly, nodded.

"Alright, but nothing leaves that room, I'm watching ya the whole time."

"Deal."

Upon entering said room, Gobber immediately went and got the chest where he kept all of Hiccup's old things and set it on the table and opened the top. Fishlegs stepped over and carefully brought out a moderately sized stack of parchment. As Astrid said, most of them were landscapes, people or weapon designs. All were pretty impressive actually, considering Hiccup wasn't even a teen yet when he had drawn any of these. He was about ¾ of the way through the stack, all being drawings of some kind that he took great care in handling, and looked carefully at all details, until something else caught his eye. It was a stack of parchment bound together with string. The top one held some scribbled writing with rough sketches of silhouettes of what was easily recognizable as a dragon, just not a dragon he was familiar with.

"Did you bind these together?" He asked Gobber. The man shook his head.

"No, they were already like tha'. I just left 'em an' put them in 'ere."

"May I? Carefully of course…"

"Just wha' is it you're lookin' for Fishlegs?"

"Anything that might indicate that Hiccup might have known something that we didn't."

"And what makes you think he would?"

"I got to thinking, after my conversation with Astrid, I liked to close myself off whenever I got the chance, so I could read, and learn as much as I could. But I always had to go back outside and continue training. Hiccup was pushed aside a lot because he couldn't really keep up with us, so he closed himself off a lot more than I did. And Astrid said that you told her he stayed in here a lot."

"And the woods. 'E was in the woods a lot to. I' was hard to keep in the village sometimes."

"And why would he go to the woods, and then come back and draw some more? Where was he going? He clearly knew his way around better than anyone if he spent that much time there. And after closing himself off so much, he just suddenly disappeared with no warning?" Gobber gave him a look that clearly said that he was overthinking things.

"I just want to know if we missed something or not, because none of us even knew that these," He said, gesturing to the papers all over the table, "existed until a couple days ago. He was how old when he came up with the contraption that you're building out there right now?" Gobber was silent after that one.

"Can I look at these?" He asked after a moment, finally receiving a nod from Gobber.

He carefully removed the string from the pile of papers, and began leafing through them. He was more confused with every turn of a page. Every paper holding a written description followed by roughly sketched silhouettes of the same dragon. Each page that held that was followed by three or more pages of sketched out maps and marked off locations of what looked like the trails in the woods that he often followed to go hunting, but also included some trails that he didn't know were there. He caught something on the very last page that made him stop. Still containing a rough sketch of the dragon, but this one having more details instead of being a silhouette. At the bottom there was a scribbled note, barely legible, that read 'Add to journal', and nothing else. Fishlegs turned to Gobber after thinking for a moment.

"Did Hiccup have any _books_ that he deemed specific for any purpose?"

"No' that I know of. All he ever drew in here was always on loose parchment. That I remember anyway…" Fishlegs hummed for a moment with a very thoughtful expression across his features.

'Maybe…?' He thought, before putting all of the papers back into a neat pile in the chest he pulled them out of. He thanked Gobber and exited the forge, walking in a seemingly aimless direction. He meandered toward the tree line of the woods and disappeared behind the thicket for a moment, before reappearing a little ways down and looking around, checking if anyone was watching. Most of the remaining villagers were assisting in rebuilding the structures that were damaged in the last raid, so he deemed the coast clear, and made a beeline for the back door of the chief's hut. Upon entering and reclosing the door, he began to look around, attempting to make as little noise as possible, just in case, and made sure that he wasn't going to leave a trace of his presence anywhere. He leafed through the books that he could find, and looked under and behind several things before deciding to look upstairs. He crept up the wooden steps and entered the door to what he assumed was Hiccup's room.

Standing in the doorway, he deduced that this was, in fact, Hiccup's room. If you took the contents of the chest he just looked through at the forge and tossed them all over the room, added a bed and desk, you'd have the room the young man just entered. There were drawings and designs absolutely _everywhere_ in here. Along with crumpled papers that he assumed were things that Hiccup hadn't been satisfied with and tossed away. Fishlegs spent a good hour in this room, trying to carefully go through everything and putting it right back where he found it, once again looking under and behind things, even going so far as to uncrumple the papers all over the floor to look at them, but came up with nothing that looked like it referenced the dragon sketches. As he turned to leave, his foot hit a floorboard that shifted under his weight, making him stop and right himself again, as his balance was thrown off. He leaned down to put it back in place, but paused. Under the floorboard was something rectangular wrapped in cloth and tied with twine.

He pulled it out and placed the board back in its proper place, and then carefully unwrapped the object to find that it was a book, to which he opened the cover and froze. Lo and behold, on the first page of the book, was a _very_ detailed depiction of the dragon that he had seen roughly sketched out at the forge.

'Bingo'

* * *

 _Hiccup had woken up with the sun the following morning, wanting to get all of the work that Gobber gave him done early enough that he could go back and see if the dragons were still in the cove. Upon his arrival, Gobber immediately put him to work on thoroughly cleaning all of the tools while he began his morning preparations for the workload ahead of him. When mid-morning rolled around, Gobber had Hiccup go with him on a delivery to the docks. The chief had ordered the making of about a dozen new ships, so they needed to take the bolts and supports, among other pieces, down to the building site._

 _Hiccup quickly grew bored with the conversation that Gobber was having with the building crew upon their arrival, and had wandered off in another direction. Of course, who else is to come around the corner but his crush, Astrid? It was definitely a one-sided attraction, since she barely ever acknowledged his existence. But it didn't stop him from trying to talk to her anyway. They were friends when they were a bit younger, and he couldn't figure out why she had almost completely stopped talking to him. The only time she did was when he started the conversation, but even_ that _has become less and less._

" _Hi Astrid!" He said as he trotted over to her, only now noticing the axe she was carrying. "I take it your dad was teaching you how to use your axe today?"_

" _He was teaching me how to throw it today." was the simple 'to the point' reply he got._

" _Cool," He replied with a smile. "Hey, it's been a while since we actually got together, maybe we could-OW!" His sentence was cut off by a rock hitting the back of his head._

" _Who'd want to hang around you,_ Hiccup _?" an all too familiar voice said from behind him, immediately following the impact of the rock against his skull._

" _C'mon, Snotlout. Really? Why can't you just leave me alone for a day?" He asked as he turned around to see his cousin standing there flanked by the twins, Fishlegs trailing behind them._

" _Cause that would be no fun, that's why," He said as he walked up to the pair._

" _What did I ever do to make you beat me up all the time?"_

" _Uh, you were born…" he replied, giving him a push, which for the boy wound up feeling more like a shove._

" _C'mon twiggy, you can't take a hit?" Snotlout pushed him again, this time Hiccup losing his footing and fall back onto a barrel that ended up rolling down the hill in was sitting on top of with enough momentum to cause a chain reaction upon impact with the post at the bottom. The post was a temporary weighted one that they used during construction projects, but the barrel was heavy enough to throw it off and it tipped, causing the rope that was tied to it to loosen, which gave enough slack in the needed tension to throw the supports off the wooden beams holding up one of the ships that was in the beginnings of being built. Needless to say, the ship prematurely hit the water, and sank. All eyes turned upward to the top of the hill to see only Hiccup standing there, whom just realized himself that his tormentors had fled the scene, leaving Hiccup to be blamed._

 _A few minutes after Gobber gave him a good scolding about leaving his side, he was about to roll into talking to him about what happened, but another voice beat him to it._

" _What happened?!" None other than the village chief came walking up with a scowl on his face, being trailed by Snotlout and his lackeys, the former wearing a smirk all the way. Evidently he had gone and alerted the chief about the mess he'd made and made it sound like it was Hiccup's fault._

" _It was an accident! Honest! Snotlout-!" He was cut off by the chief._

" _Now, don't you go blaming others for your own mistakes. You tell me what happened from beginning to end, and I won't hear any lies!"_

" _But dad, I-!" This time he was cut off by another villager whom was a part of the building crew._

" _He knocked one of the fish barrels down the hill and it caused a chain reaction when it hit the post, and we lost of the ships we were working on."_

" _Is that true?" He said as he looked scoldingly down at his son._

" _Yeah, but I didn't-"_

" _Ah-ah! NO._ Did _you or did you_ not _knock the barrel down the hill?"_

 _Hiccup looked over at Fishlegs and Astrid, the latter looking down and away, and the former giving him a look of sympathy, but neither said a word. Hiccup sighed, resigning himself to being punished for something that wasn't his fault, seeing as neither of the witnesses wanted to speak up._

" _Yes I did. But-"_

" _No buts. That's enough. Gobber take him back to the forge please, and_ don't _let him out of your sight, I'll come for him when I'm finished here," He said as he turned to speak to the building crew._

 _Gobber put a hand on Hiccup's shoulder and led him away, passing Snotlout and gang along the way, Astrid still not looking in his direction and Fishlegs opted to do the same. The other three shamelessly snickered away at his expense._

 _After a couple of seconds, Gobber stopped and turned to Hiccup._

" _Ok, lad. What happened_ exactly _?" He asked, still in a scolding manner, but more willing to listen to what Hiccup was gonna say than the chief was._

" _Snotlout pushed me and I fell into the barrel and knocked it down the hill. It was an accident! Honest!" He replied, pleadingly._

" _And is tha' the absolute truth?"_

" _Yes, it is. I didn't mean to," he said while looking down at the dirt. Gobber sighed._

" _Lad, ya got t' start learning how to defend yourself, or else they're just gonna keep pickin' on ya. Toughen up a little!"_

 _Hiccup continued to look down at the ground, and was quiet for a few seconds. Well, it didn't get him off the hook with the chief, but at least Gobber_ listened _to him._

" _I'll try," He finally replied sadly._

" _Ok. Now let's go back to the forge. Why don't ye stay inside for a little while? Ye can be done and have some free time when ya finish with the axe heads I gave ya. Until yer dad comes to get ye, tha' is." Hiccup nodded in response, following Gobber back to the forge. All parties involved in the incident remained completely unaware of the pair of ruby red eyes watching from the tree-line. The white dragon, having witnessed the event, snorted once, then turned and disappeared into the trees._

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Well then! This one was kind of fun to write. Hiccup and Arman are playing a little detective in this one. As well as Fishlegs, with his own little mystery to solve, while just grazing over the fact that he snuck into the chief's hut to obtain the clue he was looking for…**

 **Ok so real quick, the drum that I was referring to, before jumping over to Berk, that Hiccup plays is called a Bodhrán, which is a Celtic folk instrument. It's really cool to listen to it being played, because there is a specific technique to it that requires more coordination that I contain myself, so… XD  
And Arman just plays a wooden flute.  
For those of you who don't know what a Jig is, Jigs and Reels are also from Celtic origin. Kind of hard to explain, so if you're curious beyond that, you can look up "Celtic Jig" on Youtube, and there are a lot of videos showing those off. I guarantee that you've heard one at some point in your life, even if you didn't know it was referred to as a jig or a reel (not the same thing by the way, they're two different music pieces).**

 **The reason I am bringing Celtic culture into the mix here will reveal itself in time. There are a few little things here and there that will be explained through flashback narrative as we go, so bear with me. I promise it actually has significance beyond "I like it, so it's going in the story."**

 **Also, Trader Johann has made an appearance! ...On the fly, might I add. I didn't originally plan for him to be there, but he ended up being a plot convenience…So yeah. Trying to keep things rolling.**

 **So to put the island chain into a better visual, Spek is basically the corner of a rough/misshapen 'L', while the other islands span out to the north to northwest, and east to southeast-ish from them, so kind of a squiggly obtuse angle, if you will. So the neighboring islands travel to the "center island" to trade, as 'meeting in the middle' is typically seen as neutral territory. Makes good business for Spek though.**

 **Braknor is not actually included in the list of neighboring 'L' islands, it's a lot further eastward. I'm probably going to be posting some sketches of either character designs that I could explain very well, or maps (or probably both, actually) to my DeviantArt page eventually. I'm actually in the process of making some changes and shifting things around, but I'll hopefully start getting stuff posted at some point if you guys are at all interested...**

 **But for the time being, you can use your imagination. XD**

 **Alrighty, as usual, if you've made it this far in my ramblings, I appreciate it! And once again, don't be afraid to provide me with any constructive criticism you may have, I do wish to improve in story structure as well as story-telling, and I want to make sure that everything continues to flow smoothly when it's being read.**

 **Next time, we visit some other villages and uncover some secrets, so stay tuned!**

 **Until next time! Thank you much! ^_^**


	5. AN: PLEASE READ!

**Author's note, please read!**

Hi guys! So I hate to do this, but I'm gonna have to put story updates on hold for a little while.

Please note that **I AM** **NOT ****ABANDONDING THE STORY.** I _fully_ intend to finish it (I've been there, where I'm reading a story and then it's discontinued and I get really mad cause it was getting interesting. I'm not gonna do that to you. I will continue it, I promise.)

What's actually going on is, unfortunately, I have Tendinitis in both of my arms, and just over the weekend it has decided to flare up in my right arm. If you don't have tendinitis, it's also known as Tennis Elbow (you don't have to play tennis to get it, it's any repetitive motion concerning your wrists, or more prominently your thumb, first and second finger, such as typing for a living. I have a desk job, so there you go), then you are VERY lucky, because it makes even simple motions with whatever limb you have it in (opening a door, gripping things, etc., if it's in your arm, for example.) _very_ painful. Tendon pain, SUCKS.

I actually had to type this whole message with my left hand only (I'm a righty, btw), because trying to type with my right hand at the moment just sends searing pain up my arm. It took forever and a lot of backspacing to type it out correctly…

Unfortunately, (oof, big word without both hands) it also decided to flare up while I was fixing up and reworking chapter 5 to get it ready to post, so I don't even have another chapter for you at the moment…

So again, REALLY sorry about this guys. For those who are following the story, if you're still interested in reading more, _please_ be patient, I **WILL** continue updating once I'm actually able to continue typing it up.

Thank you to everyone for showing your interest in this story, I really appreciate it, and I'm glad that you are enjoying it. I'll hopefully have another chapter up within the next couple of weeks, or so. So, 'till next time! 3


	6. Ch 5: Questions

And, I'm back!

So the Tendinitis that I thought I had started hurting a heck of a lot more than it should've been (comparatively to any other time my wrists and arms have hurt), and I went and got checked out. Turns out I have Carpal Tunnel. So fun times were had as I tried to let my arm heal by being a one handed lefty… it should be noted that I am not ambidextrous and I am heavily right handed, which is the arm it reared its ugly head in. So it has been an interesting time. Especially with the fact that overuse of my left to compensate for my lack of right caused pain to flare up in _that_ arm also. So I wound up using my right arm more anyway so I didn't strain my left even more, both are still healing and I have zero strength in either one…

.

.

.

I'm too young for these problems -_-

Anyway, it should be noted that with these problems happening in my arms, I'm not too sure I'm going to be able to keep up with once a week updates I had going. I will try, but I can't push it, or I'll make it worse. I may switch to every other week if it helps my arms. But I _can_ tell you that I WILL absolutely see this story to its completion!

 **Also, please read this before continuing to the chapter-** , during my downtime, I actually decided on a whim to re-read what I had posted…and cringed. I wound up correcting a LOT of mistakes I hadn't caught during my first proof-reading. So the first couple of chapters have been corrected of any typing errors I could find, and I also rewrote the Draken portions to match what I had settled on by like chapter 4 in terms of how to portray the language, so it should flow a lot more smoothly into what I am currently writing now. I was able to do some plot line layout while I was taking a break from the actual writing of the story, and a couple of minor details changed in the first two chapters to accommodate what I plan to write out in the future, so it'll all meld together properly.

But anyway, that's all I have for you at the moment, you guys are here to read the story, not my rambling, so:

 **Disclaimer:** None of the How to Train Your Dragon characters belong to me! They all belong to the wonderful character design team at DreamWorks studios that worked on the movie. The characters you do _not_ recognize from the show however, are all of my own creation, as well as the language that will appear in this story.

Now then, I present to you, Chapter 5!

* * *

Following the discovery of Hiccup's book, Fishlegs was able to get some time to dive into the pages fairly quickly. Lucky for him, seeing him walking around with a book in hand wasn't uncommon, so he was able to walk around with it without any question. He was on his way home to make dinner and flip through the book when a storm that had been building all day finally decided to let lose its rain. He opted for turning back and going to the Great Hall instead of his hut, as it was closer, and he didn't want the book to get damaged before he could get a chance to look at it. He got inside rather quickly, managing to beat the downpour before it hit too hard, and he got a plate of food and found a table to sit at.

The twins had come to sit down shortly after, as well as Snotlout, but he was gone within seconds of Astrid walking in. Leaving Fishlegs with the twins for the duration of their stay. Needless to say his patience was tested many times that evening.

He decided to stay put when everyone cleared out of the Great Hall to head home, as it was still raining. There was no one present anyway, so he decided to simply read the book right there, and he probably wasn't going to have anyone enter the hall due to the storm. Flipping the cover of the book open, he began to examine it carefully.

Like before, the first page contained a detailed depiction of an unknown dragon, standing at a ¾ front view, with one front leg slightly in front of the other, and its hind legs stretched out slightly behind it in a proud stance with its head held high. It was positioned on the page to appear to be staring directly at the viewer with its wings half spread and its tail curling around its body on the ground into view. It was a beautiful pose that showed off the strong build of the dragon, but what baffled Fishlegs was just how much _detail_ it had.

The light reflection in the eyes, each scale, each highlight and shadow, showing off a clear light source coming from somewhere off to the top right of the page. It looked like it _posed_ for the drawing for Thor's sake! How did Hiccup manage to get so many details into this drawing? And what kind of dragon _was_ this, and how did _Hiccup_ of all people survive after finding it?

There was, of course, the possibility that Hiccup had completely made this dragon up, but he ignored the little voice that suggested this for the moment in favor of feeding his new curiosity. It didn't take too long into reading the book, or _trying_ to read it anyway as most of the script was more like scribbles, to start getting answers, nor did it take long to have more questions than answers arise.

A few minutes in found Fishlegs looking over pages that held profile front and side views of the dragon's head and body, labeling specific features, such as "sub-wings" or "large eyes". There was also a couple of other sketches of the dragon's head, both with its mouth open, one with teeth and one without, alongside of the label "retractable teeth", as well as other head sketches showing variations in either expression or a dilated vs a slit pupil. There were even size measurements, of just about every part of the body. Head height, tail length, wingspan, nose to tail length, and so on. Fishlegs continued to get more and more confused the more he read. There's no way this was a real dragon. If Hiccup had managed to get close enough to get these kinds of details, he'd have died instan-…

Wait…

Or…is this the _reason_ he disappeared? Had he discovered the dragon and collected this info and then something happened to him? Fishlegs kept reading through more and more pages, coming across side-notes and detailed lists of abilities, diet, and even locations. The last one caught his interest more than the rest, and made him think back to all the maps that he had seen sketched at the forge.

'Could those have been places he saw this thing?'

The idea kept bouncing around his head, making him think more and more about Gobber telling him that Hiccup liked to spend a lot of time in the woods by himself, and how he'd come back and draw some more. So it would make sense, and it would explain his disappearing if the dragon decided to…

He kept flipping through the pages, completely ignoring the loud thunder rolling over head and reverberating through the tall room as the storm continued. Page after page of notes jotted down beside a sketch, or labeled maps with X's here and there, marking off locations for something he could only guess at. He finally came across a page that had a smaller sketch on the upper half, depicting the same dragon from throughout the book, simply an outline, standing beside one much smaller dragon that was shaded in, clearly depicting the difference in coloration of the two. But they did look like the same kind of dragon. Below the sketch on the bottom half of the page was some writing that Fishlegs had to read a couple of times in order to fully process it, and even then he read it again, just to be sure he read it correctly, not sure whether to believe what it said or not.

" _I've decided to start calling the white one Mama, as she is the little one's mom, and I'm tired of just calling her 'Dragon' all the time. I'm calling the little one Toothless because he gives me big gummy smiles whenever I do, something I think he learned from the first time I met him, where he copied my own smile._

 _After watching them both for weeks, I've finally pieced together that they might be Night Furies. The younger one shows every trait of a Night Fury that I can think of that would make sense with the stories. Black hide and scales, stealthy, fast and even his fire blast is the same as I've heard. He can also be pretty scary when he wants to be. I've also heard in stories that when a Night Fury is approaching, you hear a shrill whistling sound just before it blasts everything to dust. I've heard Mama make a sound like that when she's fishing. It happens when she dives down and fires at a school of fish in the water. I only hear it when she's about to shoot a blast at something though._

 _The problem is that Mama is white, not black. But I once heard trader Johann talk about seeing an animal that someone told him was born with a rare condition that made it white with red eyes instead of the normal colors. If they're both Night Furies, than I think this is also the case for Mama. It also means that I'm the only one that has ever seen a Night Fury up close, and lived. I can't tell anyone that they live here."_

Silence filled the hall for several seconds, save for the thunder continuing to roll across the sky after every lightning strike.

…

…

…

"W-what?" He said aloud.

"What?" a voice said from right next to him, making him jump, and definitely not scream like a little girl.

He looked to the side to find Astrid there, whom was previously hovering over his shoulder.

"Astrid! What're you doing in here?" He asked, now getting his breathing back under control.

"I left my axe by accident when I was trying to get Snotlout to leave me alone earlier. I came back for it."

"And you just decided to hover ominously over my shoulder?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

"You were really into whatever you were reading, I wanted to see how long it would take for you to realize I was there," she nonchalantly replied.

"And how long were you standing there?"

"Like 5 minutes. More than long enough to realize that that isn't the dragon manual you're reading," she said, turning her attention to the book on the table. "Where did you get that? It looks more like a journal."

"U-uh. It's mine, I was rereading over some old entries," He replied, trying, failing, to sound convincing. Astrid just gave him a look that clearly said she wasn't buying it, and the hall remained silent for a moment.

'5-4-3-2-' She thought.

"…It's Hiccup's" He replied defeatedly. '–and fold…wait.'

"You stole that from Gobber?" she asked incredulously.

"No, I didn't steal it from Gobber…"

"Then where'd you get it?"

"I found it," He said confidently. It technically wasn't a lie, after all.

"Found it where?"

"…In a building…" Still technically not a lie…

"…You snuck into the chief's hut didn't you?" she asked after a beat of silence.

"…No…?"

"Fishlegs, you _snuck into_ the _chief's hut_? Are you _COMPLETELY_ out of your mind?!"

"I wanted answers!" He replied defensively.

"To WHAT?"

"To this," He said as he picked the book up and flipped back to the front page, then turned it so she could see the page. "I found a drawing just like this one in the chest that Gobber has at the forge. When I didn't find anything else like it, or anything that told me what it was or where Hiccup got it from, I went into his room and poked around a little, then found this. I think Hiccup discovered a dragon that no one knew about, and it may be linked to why he disappeared."

Astrid flipped through and looked over the pages of the book.

"Did it occur to you that these could be completely made up?"

"Yes, that thought had crossed my mind, until I hit _this_ page," he flipped the book to the page he was just reading and pointed to the passage on the bottom. Astrid scrunched her face in confusion after reading it.

"But that doesn't make any sense. How could no one be aware that these dragon were living here? And _Hiccup_ of all people being the only one who found them?"

"Did you just completely graze over the part about him thinking the dragons he found were Night Furies?"

"No, I read that part, and I have a hard time believing that one."

"So do I, but his logic makes sense, don't you think?"

"And what if this is all just a barrel of yak-crap?"

"I kind of want to follow his maps and see if we can find any indication of any of this being true."

"And what do you expect to find exactly? Hiccup disappeared 14 years ago, what kind of clues would still be around?"

"But if I remember correctly, only about a month prior to his disappearing was there a Night Fury in a raid." This made Astrid stop. It was a little coincidental… but maybe…

"I just want to see if there's anything left that would give us answers. I think this might be a clue to how and why he disappeared." Fishlegs said simply, making Astrid sigh.

"And why are you so interested?" She asked while rolling her eyes.

"Do you remember when Hiccup declared that he'd never grow up to be a dragon slayer?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you remember what his answer was when he was asked why?"

She glanced around in thought for a moment, trying to search her memories of the answer.

"Something about looking at something?"

"He said that we should try looking closer, and we might figure it out."

"Ok, so…?"

"So," He closed the book and held it up in Astrid's line of sight with one hand, "What did _he_ know that _we_ didn't?"

There was a lapse of silence as she flicked her eyes between the book and Fishlegs.

"Alright, fine, I'll go with you, you've got me curious now. Who would've thought that a little poking around would lead to something like this?"

"Well, when new information surfaces? You kind of want to look into it again… I want to know what he knew and why he didn't want to share it. I mean, if he really did find Night Furies, why would he keep them a secret? Besides, we might find something along the way that might give us a clue as to why the dragons are acting the way they are."

"What makes you think the two are connected?"

"Think about that for a second. Hiccup clearly discovered something, didn't share it, stopped wanting to kill dragons, and now here we are, trying to figure out why they're acting weird."

"…That was one heck of a stretch Fishlegs…" Astrid said with a dull face.

"Yeah, it was kind of forced, but my point still stands. Come on! It could be interesting!"

"Well, is there anything else in the book?" Astrid asked. Fishlegs flipped the book open again in his hand and passed the page they were on before, only to find that every page that followed got more and more unintelligible. The scribbles seemed to muddle together, not even forming words anymore. Most of them seem to be random swipes of the pencil. Almost mimicking scratches.

"What in the world?" Fishlegs vocalized both of their thoughts.

The last few pages were blank, save for the very last one. At the bottom of the last page in the book, there was a small sketch of the two dragons, the smaller curled into a ball against the larger one's side, while the latter was curled around it protectively. Underneath the sketch was a single word.

"Home"

Fishlegs and Astrid mirrored the same confused look to each other while the same thought ran through both of their minds.

'What does _that_ mean?'

* * *

The following morning, somewhere to the Southeast, Hiccup and Arman had woken up just before the sun peaked over the horizon and gotten dressed into their flight suits, left a note for Edda whom was still asleep when they left, and they took off to the East.

"Ok, so what's the plan?" Arman asked his brother over the sound of the wind.

"Well Kragen is on the other arm of the island string back that way," he began as he pointed in the opposite direction, "but I'd like to hit Brahn and Banko on the way back from Braknor. We can bounce over to Kragen if you want to, but it'll probably be past nightfall by the time we get back to Spek."

"Nah, only if we have to. Hey, everyone is saying that the dragons are coming from the East, do you think that maybe-"

"Let's talk to Braknor's chief before making any assumptions," Hiccup cut his brother off from the rest of the sentence. Silence fell over the group after that, and the dragons shared a look before pushing forward to their destination.

Upon arriving at Braknor hours later, the group was greeted by a boulder slung by a catapult that they barely managed to dodge in time, followed by the shouting of "dragons!" heard from below. They descended quickly and landed atop one of the village's buldings.

"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! We come in peace!" Arman shouted, both brothers holding their hands up in surrender.

The villagers didn't seem satisfied with this statement.

"State your business!" one burly man ahead of the group shouted from below them. His ragged appearance and dark clothing seemed to embody the surrounding atmosphere of the village and the entire place just had an air of hostility at the moment.

"We wish to speak with the chief," Hiccup replied calmly.

"I am he," the man replied firmly.

"What happened to Chief Borris?" Arman asked, all four parties curious at the change in leadership. Granted, they haven't been here in over 6 years, but the guy was going strong with no heir, and didn't seem to be stopping anytime soon. He had a lot of life left in him as far as they were concerned.

"He died almost two years ago. I am Chief Dreng the Daunting, the finest warrior and chief in the eastern sector and expert in the art of…" the man began rambling on as he puffed out his chest proudly. The group had tuned him out after a couple of seconds, considering the man didn't look like he was going to stop his flaunting anytime soon. The display prompted a blank look from Hiccup and a raised eyebrow from Arman. Even a handful of the villagers had rolled their eyes and started walking away.

"How about Dreng the 'full of himself'?" he mumbled loud enough for only the four of them to hear, spurring a humorous snort from both dragons as he turned his head to look at Hiccup. "How have we never met this knucklehead until now?"

"He must've come in sometime after our last visit here, cause I don't remember him…" Hiccup replied, then raised his voice to address the chief, effectively cutting off his insanely long self-introduction.

"We were sent to Spek by Chief Ewen of Mundar. We're allies of Chief Garik of Spek. We're investigating a rising concern about the recent dragon attacks in the area upon his request."

"Mundar? That little…wait a minute," the chief replied. "Beard of Thor, You're those two dragon tamers I've heard stories about, aren't you? I thought all that was a bunch of nonsense that someone just made up one day to spread around. Though the stories didn't make ya out to be a couple of kids. I'd say they may have exaggerated a few details a bit."

The four shared a look with each other while Keh-Teh mumbled ' **well isn't** _ **he**_ **just delightful?** ' on the side. Arman mouthed "dragon tamers?" while wearing a look of confusion and Hiccup shook his head briefly before turning his attention back to the chief, trying not to take offense to the offhanded comment. He and Arman have always had a smaller frame than a lot of men they've met, but they were far from kids.

"We are simply well educated in dragon behavior, sir. So we were asked personally by the chiefs to look into the goings on and find out what might be causing the rise in dragon attacks. We heard from a trader that your village has been experiencing some violent dragon activity. Do you mind if we came down and asked a few questions about the recent attacks? It won't take long, and we'll be out of your hair immediately following."

The chief was silent for a moment, seemingly thinking it over.

"…Alright. On two conditions. First, you keep _them_ ," he pointed to the dragons, "under control." The dragons snorted indignantly, clearly offended. "I don't need any more damage to my village."

Hiccup heard Keh-Teh begin to growl quietly, and placed a hand on his head in a calming manner.

"Easy," He said quietly, addressing both dragons, then turned to the chief. "I can assure you sir that they will behave. The second?"

"Ya give a demonstration at the arena. I want to know if the stories hold any truth."

Hiccup and Arman shared a look, the former giving a shrug.

"Sure," Arman said casually.

This earned a nod from the chief, and he waved them down while telling the other villagers to go about their business. The dragons jumped down from the roof and landed just in front of the chief.

"Alright. Make it quick," he ordered while crossing his arms, clearly eyeing the dragons in front of him with both annoyance and caution.

"How long have the attacks been going on?" Hiccup jumped right into it, clearly wanting to leave as soon as possible and not have to deal with this guy anymore.

"Couple years," the chief said plainly, also jumping straight to the point.

"And which direction do they typically come from?"

"That way," He said as he pointed off in a direction behind them. Hiccup took note that he was pointing roughly north.

"Any deaths caused by the attacks?"

"Yes."

"How many?"

"A lot. Borris included."

"Our condolences."

"Thanks," was the simple response, following the trend of short answers. The two brothers nodded.

"Were the attacks ever provoked?"

"No."

"Are they always in numbers, or ever just a single dragon?"

"Groups."

"Well I believe that'll be all."

"Great, now follow me."

'Sheesh, what a peach' was basically what ran through all of their heads as they followed the cheif.

After a few minutes, the group arrived at what looked like a recessed arena with a cage over the top. 'Oh boy, _that_ looks familiar…' Hiccup thought as they approached. Upon reaching the entrance of the arena, the siblings could clearly hear some kind of dragon behind a locked door, none could really understand anything being said by it as it banged on the door, as anything that was said was heavily muffled.

"Figured we may as well practice in defending ourselves since the attacks started getting so violent. So we started catching them. We've had this one here for the last couple of years. Feisty one," he said, gesturing to the door on the other side of the arena. He let out a sharp whistle and made a hand gesture to a man on the other side of the arena, who then responded by pulling a lever, unlocking the door.

Not a second after the lock was free of the door, an angry Monstrous Nightmare came barreling out, hide aflame in its rage. Its words were heard clearly by the siblings now, but they were still not able to understand everything, now realizing the dialect being spoken. Keh-Teh and Keh-Nah didn't really put much effort into becoming fluent in other dialects, and Hiccup and Arman have a tougher time with this particular one, as the words are spoken much differently…especially coming from a ticked off aggressive Nightmare. The brothers shared a look for just a moment before Arman spoke first.

"Welp, I'll give this one to you brother," he said as he clapped a hand on Hiccup's shoulder. Hiccup just stared at him.

"I can't speak Isenim," Arman whispered.

"…neither can I…" Hiccup whispered back.

"But you understand more than I do."

"Barely…"

Both were silent.

"…I wonder if it knows any Sena," Arman wondered, still whispering.

"I highly doubt it."

"Well do you know how much vocabulary is shared between Sena and Isenim?"

"Not much…"

Hiccup sighed.

"I'll have to rely on body language…" Hiccup said while walking over to Keh-Teh. He grabbed his mask off of his saddle, a full face metal plate made out of their personal mixture with a layer of black scales fused to the surface, designed specifically to withstand and deflect the high temperatures of dragon fire.

"Alright chief. Let me in," Hiccup said as he slipped the mask over his head.

The chief all to happily opened the metal gate just enough for Hiccup to slip under before letting it slam back to the ground once he was through, ultimately, and purposely, getting the Nightmare's attention. Its reaction was immediate as it whipped around and lunged for Hiccup, who dove out of the way as the Nightmare whipped back around and fired at him. Hiccup was barely able to dodge in time, then turned to face the Nightmare, who in turn lunged at him again. Hiccup dove for a barrier that was off to the side of the arena as the Nightmare fired again, this time a more concentrated blast. Once the flame had ceased and he heard the Nightmare quickly moving toward him again, and he bolted for the wall, the Nightmare hot on his heels. He jumped and kicked off the wall, effectively turning himself a full 180 degrees and reached out, nabbing the Nightmare's horns and used his momentum to yank its head around and pin it to the ground.

The stunned Nightmare ceased its flame, letting the fire across its body die out. Hiccup removed one of his gloves and ran his hand across the Nightmare's lower jaw until he found the sweet spot that made the rest of its body relax, and he lowered his head to rest for only a second on the Nightmare's while he spoke.

" **Kah-NEE-teh** ," He said softly. The Night Fury and Nightmare dialects don't share too many words, so he wasn't even sure if it would understand him, but he hoped his tone of voice would be enough to convince it.

" **Ah-NEHK leh-MAH** ," He said, just as quietly and lifted his head. The Nightmare remained still for a moment, so Hiccup released its head and back away a few steps. The Nightmare finally sat up and looked at him, so he lowered his head and crouched down so he was below the Nightmare's level, and kept his eyes to the ground while he lifted his ungloved hand slowly and held it out. There was a moment of stillness as the Nightmare seemed to be sizing him up, gauging if his intentions were truly meant to be peaceful, and it slowly approached him while sniffing. Still cautious, it hesitated a second more, before gently resting its nose on Hiccup's palm.

Keeping his hand in place with his head still low, he slowly stood up and turned his back moving his arm outwards to the side, the Nightmare's nose following his hand. He took a couple slow steps forward, as did the Nightmare, so he took a couple more. The dragon still following him, his expression had turned to one of cautious intrigue. Hiccup started to turn his body to face it, but it flinched back and growled, so he returned to facing away and he kept his arm extended, his head remaining low the entire time. The dragon's nose once again came up to his hand, and he slowly turned his body in the opposite direction, the Nightmare's nose still following as he circled.

He stopped once he was facing the gate, and he lifted his head just enough to see that his audience had actually grown without him realizing. There were easily 30 people lining the exterior wall of the arena, all staring at him wide-eyed and slack-jawed, the chief included, while Arman just stood there smiling in satisfaction. He decided to try something, seeing as how the Nightmare seemed open enough with him, as long as he had his back turned. He lowered his arm and bent it at the elbow, turning his palm upward, and waited. To his delight, the Nightmare placed its jaw in his hand and he gently rubbed the scales there, eliciting a purr that was more than loud enough for the silent crowd to hear. He lifted his other hand and rested it on top of the Nightmare's nose and continued to massage the scales, making it purr louder. At this point he began turning again to face it, the dragon remaining in place this time.

After a moment there, he turned back to face his audience and smugly called, "Any questions?"

* * *

Bouncing from Brahn to Banko gave them similar answers to the pervious island, albeit they were more known by the chiefs of those two, so they didn't have as many problems with hostility. They were informed that there were no deaths this far out, but there was still extensive damage from dragons that flew in from the northeast. Hiccup seemed satisfied that he had enough directional clues to figure out where they're coming from. Arman was already pretty sure he _knew_ where they were coming from and where they needed to go, and so did Hiccup. He just didn't want to accept it.

The sun was completely below the horizon line by the time they returned to Spek, and Edda had dinner ready for them when they all walked in the door. They ate in relative silence, except for Arman telling Edda about the events on Braknor and how funny he found the situation. When they finished eating, the four retired to their room, the dragons immediately curling up into one dragon blob under the window.

Hiccup was hovering over a map he had spread out across the table on his side of the room while Arman had just started to get ready for bed.

"So I was thinking," Arman started as he got dressed, "we should head back east at some point, take the kids maybe. I kind of want to see Asia again. Oh! Or, we could go south, hit a beach, go wind-boarding again? What do you think?"

He turned and looked over at hiccup who stood frozen on the spot.

"You alright over there?" He asked.

When he got no response, he walked over to see what was wrong.

Looking over his brother's shoulder, he saw the issue. Hiccup had taken the straight edge of a book and drawn lines on the map from each island they stopped at to the other side of the map in the direction they were told from each island that the dragons came from. All of the lines intersected over one spot on the map that only confirmed what Arman had already deduced. He laid a hand on Hiccup's shoulder and smirked.

"Welp, looks like we get to visit Berk whether you wanted to or not," He said a little too cheerily. Oh, if looks could kill, Arman would have disintegrated by now. "So when d'you wanna go?"

His question was followed by silence as Hiccup looked back at the map, staring at the intersecting lines that fell overtop the location of the Barbaric Archipelago. Arman rolled his eyes.

"Alright, fine. Tell you what. Let's sleep tonight, and fly over tomorrow afternoon and we'll time it so that it'll be dark by the time we get there. We'll stay hidden and they don't even have to know we're there. We don't even have to hit Berk at all. There's other islands we can camp out on. How's that sound?"

"Better than what you were implying earlier," Hiccup replied plainly. "I'm going to bed."

Arman just watched him kick off his boots, shed his chest plate and plop on his bed face down. He simply shook his head and looked back at the map. 'This should be interesting,' he thought, and he went got himself ready for the night.

Sure enough, come evening the next day, the four had packed up and taken off once again, after saying goodbye to Edda and letting the chief know what they were doing, this time heading for the one place Hiccup had avoided since the day he left it. Hiccup had gotten no sleep the previous night, and little was able to keep his anxiety at bay during the day. Even when he'd decided to visit the forge and say hi to his old friend whom had taken him under his wing for a while when he was younger.

Unfortunately, all he could focus on now was every possible bad scenario that could happen while they were there. And Arman did little to relieve his stress, having given up around lunch time as Hiccup seemed unresponsive to anything to get his mind off of the situation.

Roughly six hours after they took off, they had entered the archipelago. The sun had fully set, bathing the world in darkness with the only light to guide them being the moon. Arman noticed a glow in the distance as they flew.

"Hey, what's that?" he asked his brother, pointing out what he saw

"I don't know," Hiccup responded. "But being in this area, I might have a pretty good idea."

And with that, they turned and headed towards it. As they got closer, Hiccups anxiety only skyrocketed, having recognized the silhouette of their destination, even after so many years of being gone.

'Berk' He thought. But something wasn't right. The glow was too bright to be the normal night torches that he remembered.

"Might be a dragon raid," He called out to Arman.

"Alright, stay low, but out of range. I want to see how the dragons behave around here," Arman replied, earning a simple nod from Hiccup. Both brothers now putting their masks on and laid low on the dragons' backs as they got closer. Flying overhead gave them a good visual on what was happening at any given time, confirming Hiccup's previous thought, but what they saw didn't look quite right. The dragons were grouping together, some even tag teaming and protecting specific groups who looked like they were trying to break into some kind of structure. It was too…methodical. Dragons didn't attack like that.

'What in the-' was all the farther Hiccup got in his thought when he heard his brother call out to him.

"LOOK OUT!" He had no time to react and Keh-Teh was caught off guard by a weighted net suddenly being launched in their direction and high speed and hitting them, wrapping around Keh-Teh's body and wing while throwing off their direction and causing them to slam into Arman and Keh-Nah. Keh-Nah was able to right herself, but Arman had fallen off of her back and Hiccup was caught in the net that wrapped around both him and Keh-Teh, all were falling straight into the fray. She reacted on impulse and dove for Arman, and began charging a fire blast in the back of her throat. The sound immediately gained a reaction from below.

"Night fury! Get down!"

By the time she reached Arman, she knew she wouldn't have enough time to pull out of the dive. So she fired her shot, aiming only to clear the immediate area, and she wrapped herself around Arman and flipped around so she broke his fall while Keh-Teh, having little to movement in the net, could only turn himself so that he hit the ground first, leaving Hiccup exposed on his back as they hit the ground hard.

* * *

 _It's been about 6 months since Hiccup had discovered the cove and its inhabitants, and about 4 months since he discovered that said inhabitants had a spoken language. He had been returning to the cove on a daily basis, as it offered him an escape from his usual tormentors, but also gave him an opportunity to learn as much about the dragons as he could. It also helped that they hadn't seemed to mind his presence. If anything, they embraced it whenever he came by, which felt nice since no one in the village except Gobber seemed to really like having him around._

 _He'd also been keeping a journal with all of his notes and drawings about everything he'd learned about the two, including vocabulary notes._

" _ **Ah-Mah, ee-uu-neh mah Ah-Lah-Bah**_ _," Hiccup said, roughly pronouncing the words correctly. It was difficult to do so anyway when you didn't have dragon vocal chords. The white dragon sat beside him while he read. To his surprise, it turned out that they had a written language as well as spoken, though it wasn't used nearly as much. Most dragons don't see a point for it, and thus weren't practiced in the skill. Most can't read the symbols and humans obviously don't think dragons would be intelligent enough to do something like that and instead see random scratches in a surface, thus Night Furies would actually scratch messages somewhere for another of their kind to find. The boy's current tutor however, felt the need to break out her own knowledge of the skill to teach Hiccup as it actually did come in handy at times, though rarely. Currently, they sat in the cove and she would scratch in the dirt and have him read the phrase, then translate the words. He was learning fairly well for the time she'd been teaching him. It certainly wasn't easy to pick up the syllables coming from a dragon's vocals, but he could understand if the words were spoken clearly, and having the written language seemed to help. Speaking the words himself was the challenge point._

" _ **And that means?"**_ _She asked. Being one of the first phrases she taught him, he had no trouble understanding it._

" _Mama's name is Alaba," He said confidently._

" _ **Close."**_ _Hiccup looked at it again, trying to see what he got wrong. It took him a second to find it._

" _Oh, Mama your name is Alaba?" he corrected._

" _ **Good job,"**_ _She replied. Hiccup flipped backwards a couple pages in his journal to find the phrase he thought was correct and compared it to the words written in the dirt._

" _Those lines look really similar…" He pointed out. This made her chuckle, or the dragon's equivalent, anyway._

" _ **Yes they do. But one is speaking directly, and the other a third party. This word here makes the difference."**_ _She said as she pointed a claw at what she wrote. Hiccup looked between the two and frowned._

" _ **You will get it, Eketeb. Don't worry,"**_ _She responded, using the name she had given the boy early on, while speaking her words as clearly as possible for him to understand._

" _ **Yeah Fishbone! You'll get it!"**_ _Her son, on the other hand…er, paw?... took it upon himself to challenge Hiccup with his hyperactive speech patterns as much as possible. At first, she tried to get him to slow down his speech until Hiccup learned how to understand it better, but lately it actually seemed to be helping, since the two spend so much time together. Hiccup turned to face the youngling he'd come to see as his surrogate brother with a playful smile across his face._

" _And when're you gonna learn how'ta understand MY language?" He asked, purposely complicating his sentence's vocabulary._

" _ **Huh?"**_ _he replied, cocking his head to the side, causing the other two to laugh._

" _ **His point exactly Neukete. You should be listening to these lessons as well,"**_ _his mother chided lightly._

" _When did_ you _learn_ my _language, Mama?" Hiccup asked, genuinely curious. He had been sitting through these lessons for over 4 months and still didn't know where or when she learned._

" _ **Oh, long ago. I learned from a friend, west of here,"**_ _She replied vaguely._ _ **"Now come here Neukete. I want you listening also."**_

" _ **But you're teaching him how to speak Sena! Why would I listen to a lesson that's teaching something I already speak?"**_

" _ **Because he's not just speaking Sena. You could learn just as much about his language as he is about ours."**_

" _Yeah_ Toothless _! If you learn MY language, then we could talk without a problem!" Hiccup chimed in. Alaba nodded in agreement while Keh-Teh stared blankly, trying to decipher the words that came out of Hiccup's mouth. So far, the only word he caught was Toothless, which was the teasing nickname Hiccup had given to him not too long after they met. Hiccup rolled his eyes._

" _ **Me, you, talk, dummy**_ _," He said very slowly, as if his brother wouldn't understand him otherwise. It was actually a valid concern with Hiccup speaking Sena, as human vocals couldn't produce the same sounds as a dragon, so in a lot of ways, he couldn't quite speak it properly. It was kind of like having someone with a thick accent that you couldn't quite place trying to speak to you in your native tongue and being unable to pronounce things correctly. Regardless, the two dragons understood him just fine, thus Hiccup's little jab got the desired response._

" _ **HEY!"**_ _Keh-Teh yelled, then pounced, barely missing Hiccup as the boy rolled out of the way just in time to not get squashed. And so began their usual game of cat-and-mouse tag, both laughing all the way. Hiccup had actually gotten pretty fast on his feet because of this game, but that didn't mean he could outrun the young dragon, so he tried to outrun him through different maneuvers._

 _He dove under Alaba's wing and sprinted out the other side, Keh-Teh following suit, the latter causing his mother to stand up as he slammed into her side in the process. This of course only prompted the two to use her as another obstacle, and they went under her belly and through her legs, making her maneuver herself out of the way of the two rowdy children. She shook her head and stepped to the side where she'd be out of their way entirely._

" _ **Well, I suppose we'll end the lesson there for the day."**_

" _OH! Can we go play outside the cove?" Hiccup asked, coming to a sudden stop, only to be bowled over by Keh-Teh and landed with an 'oof!'. Alaba just sighed at their antics._

" _ **Don't go too far, and stay out of trouble."**_

" _YES!" Hiccup said excitedly while he jumped on Keh-Teh's back. "_ _ **To the sky!**_ _"_

 _His companion happily complied and took off, mindful of his angle so as to not lose his passenger. Alaba shook her head and went to lay down in the sunshine. Truth be told, she had been nervous about Hiccup riding on Keh-Teh's back for a while, as she wasn't sure of her son's ability to compensate for the extra air resistance on his back. He seemed to be able to handle it alright though, so she finally let it be, and the two don't hesitate to take to the sky whenever they had the chance._

 _Once high enough, Keh-Teh leveled off and Hiccup let go to spread his arms out wide, as they were his own wings. The two just glided through the air at a leisurely pace for a little while and rounded to the backside of the island._

" _ **Wanna do it again?"**_ _Keh-Teh called over his shoulder._

" _ **Let's go!**_ _" Hiccup replied, and Keh-Teh barrel rolled, Hiccup slipping from his back in the process, then he dove after him, both enjoying the free feeling it gave them. After a few seconds, Keh-Teh flapped his wings to propel himself downward faster in order to get up under Hiccup and catch him in a gentle swoop as he curved back upwards, Hiccup giggling all the way. This game of free-fall was something they started doing after the first time Hiccup rode on his brother's back, which was actually an accident. The first free-fall was when Hiccup had gotten careless with his footing and had fallen off of a cliff side, forcing Keh-Teh to jump after him. It took a couple of seconds to get up under him and Hiccup was shaken for a little while, so they went for a leisurely glide around island until he calmed down…only to want to do it again the next day._

 _Neither have told Alaba about this…_

 _After about an hour of flying, the sun was beginning to set and the two landed back in the cove so Hiccup could grab his journal before Keh-Teh started to take him home._

 _Hiccup flipped to a new page in his book while they walked and started mapping out their paths where ever they went, as he'd gotten into the habit of doing. If the two weren't flying, they were exploring the woods while Hiccup drew maps. About halfway back, however, Keh-Teh picked up a couple different voices not too far away. After a moment, they got loud enough for Hiccup to hear as well, enough to recognize them, even. Apparently Snotlout and the twins followed him out here today and they must have lost his trail around one of the many turns he takes to get to the cove. He purposely takes the most ridiculous path he can think of in case he ever does have a tail, and today, he had three. He couldn't help but snicker mischievously, catching his companion's attention. Hiccup waved for him to follow and slunk off quietly in the direction of the voices._

" _ **What are you up to?"**_ _Keh-Teh asked as quietly as possible, only earning a motion from Hiccup that clearly said 'be quiet'._

 _After a minute, they found the three wandering around arguing about what direction to go to get back to the village. Hiccup decided that they needed a little guidance, but he wanted a little revenge at the same time. He and Keh-Teh remained low behind some bushes a moderate distance away, staying quiet. Hiccup recognized the specific trees that were above them as a cluster that had multiple nesting families of squirrels. Of which he learned, the hard way, that if you harass them, they gang up on you with whatever they have to throw down at you. Last time that happened it was a shower of pinecones. He was hoping something similar would happen if he set it up right._

 _He picked up a small rock, aimed and chucked it over his head hard. His aim definitely left something to be desired, but his distance was pretty good. The rock soared through the leaves, completely missing anything he was aiming for, and disappeared behind it. Regardless, it still stirred up the squirrels enough to make enough noise to get Snotlout and the twins' attention, making them look up, instead of around. Perfect._

 _Keh-Teh took this opportunity to slink around in the shadows with expert silence toward the tree that Hiccup was going for. Arriving at his destination, he climbed the tree, which was not as silent as his previous travel, but it did the job as upon his appearance at the top, he startled the squirrels out of the tree, causing them to find the three kids as their landing pads._

 _The sudden appearance of the squirrels on their beings and their already rattled nerves made them scream and take off in a random direction, the same direction that Hiccup threw the rock in. Apparently that rock stirred up more than the squirrels, as the three came back to run the other way while being chased by a buzzing cloud of angry bees._

' _Huh. Forgot about that beehive…'_

 _It wasn't the original plan he had in mind, but he was satisfied, none the less. And as long as the three continued to run along the path they were on, they'd find the village, so boom! Two birds with one stone._

 _Hiccup laughed once they were out of hearing range and was soon joined by Keh-Teh who came trotting up after he got out of the tree._

" _ **Too bad they won't know whose fault that was."**_

" _ **That's good.**_ _Last thing I need is payback bullying," Hiccup replied after he got his laughing under control, switching languages midsentence. "_ _ **Let's go.**_ _"_

 _Keh-Teh nodded and the two headed off in the same direction as Snotlout and the twins. Once they got about a 100 yards of the treeline, Hiccup gave Keh-Teh a hug and walked the rest of the way alone. Keh-Teh stuck around, as he and his mother got into the habit of doing when they took Hiccup back to the village, until he saw the boy exit the woods and disappear. He then turned around and headed home himself._

' _ **I wish he didn't have to go back there…'**_

* * *

 **Author's Note:  
** Alrighty! Lots of info dropped in this chapter, and I'm getting better at chapter length! Woo hoo!

Ok, so Recap:

Names mentioned in this chapter:  
-Edda: the village seamstress of Spek, and the boys' former guardian from their time living there.  
-Garik: Chief of Spek and father of Bolek from the previous chapter.  
-Borris: Previous chief of Braknor, deceased.  
-Dreng the Daunting: Current chief of Braknor  
-Neukete/Neh-Oo-Keh-Teh/Keh-Teh: Toothless _(And I think that I am actually going to start using this spelling when writing out his full name now, but the shortened will remain "Keh-Teh", same goes for Keh-Nah)_  
-Estekena/Ehs-Teh-Keh-Nah/Keh-Nah: Arman's childhood companion and surrogate sibling.  
-Estelim/Ehs-Teh-Leem: The Braknor Monstrous Nightmare  
-Eketeb/Eh-Keh-Tehb: Hiccup's Draken name, given to him by Mama. ( _Derived from the Sena-Draken word Ekateba, meaning sparrow.)  
_ -Amateku/Ah-Mah-Teh-Koo: Referring to the Red Death. _(This is the literal Isenim dialect translation, however it can also be translated into 'Mother of Death' in the Sena dialect.)  
_ -Ah-Mah/Mama/Alaba/AH-lah-BAH: The white dragon. ( _Ama, or Ah-Mah is the Sena-Draken word, literally meaning 'mother', or 'mom'.)  
_

Islands mentioned in this chapter:  
Spek (pronounced SPEHK)  
Braknor (pronounced BRAK-nohr)  
Brahn (pronounced the way it looks)  
Banko (pronounced the way it looks)  
Kragen (pronounced kray-ghen)

Dialects mentioned so far:  
Sena (SEH-nah): Night Fury  
Isenim (EE-seh-neem): Monstrous Nightmare

Hiccup's Draken dialog: **  
"Kah-NEE-teh"** (spelled Kanite, means 'peace', or 'peaceful' depending on the context)  
" **Ah-NEHK leh-MAH** " (Spelled Anek Lema, means "I mean no harm")

Now real quick here. I realized that it sounds like I am referring to each dialect as if it's another language. So, here's my concept for this language, just to clarify, in case there is any question or confusion after this chapter. Draken refers to basically anything spoken by a dragon that still shares at least the most simple and basic vocabulary possible, as well as the same basic grammar rules with other dialects, even to a minute amount. The language itself has evolved across the multiple species so far that the dialects can sometimes seem like different languages, but when broken down, they still share the same base. This is the reason why it's mentioned that Hiccup and Arman have a hard time learning the Isenim dialect when they've become fluent in Sena. Now, each species sounds different when we listen to them in the movie, that being said, a lot of dialects are incredibly difficult to either speak, or even understand from a human's perspective. Now Isenim and Sena sound similar, but have vastly different vocabulary, thus communication is still difficult. Another reason it's hard to speak Sena to other dragons is from a dragon's perspective, they don't need to sound like the other species to communicate, they just need to understand the dialects. Because Night Furies are very solitary (in this AU at least), Sena is almost impossible for dragons to understand, as its not spoken enough for it to become a dialect they need to learn.

Now each dialect has its own name, because the dragons don't refer to their overall language, but the dialect they speak, i.e., Night Furies speak Sena and Monstrous Nightmares speak Isenim. This concept will be further explained in later chapters.

Alright, that's all for now. As always, don't be afraid to leave some criticism, I always aim to improve my skill at writing.

Next time, what will happen to the four siblings, having crashed onto Berk at the worst time possible? We'll find out. :3


	7. Ch 6: Revalations

I'm having fun writing this story. These types of AU's usually end up just staying in my head and I don't do anything with them other than draw a few pictures and then stash them away in a binder somewhere. So it's cool to actually write this out and have so many people take an interest in reading it and even want to wait for the updates.

So thank you all SO much for being patient with me with the updates.

 **Disclaimer:** None of the How to Train Your Dragon characters belong to me! They all belong to the wonderful character design team at DreamWorks studios that worked on the movie. The characters you do _not_ recognize however, are all of my own creation, as well as the language that appears in this story.

* * *

 _Previously:  
"LOOK OUT!" He had no time to react and Keh-Teh was caught off guard by a weighted net suddenly being launched in their direction and high speed and hitting them, wrapping around Keh-Teh's body and wing while throwing off their direction and causing them to slam into Arman and Keh-Nah. Keh-Nah was able to right herself, but Arman had fallen off of her back and Hiccup was caught in the net that wrapped around both him and Keh-Teh. She reacted on impulse and dove, causing an audible, shrill whistle from the air traveling through her folded wings to sound. An immediately recognizable sound, instantly causing a reaction from below._

" _Night fury! Get down!"_

 _By the time she reached Arman, she didn't have enough time to pull out of the dive. So she fired a blast, aiming only to clear the immediate area, and she wrapped herself around Arman and flipped around so she broke his fall while Keh-Teh, having little to movement in the net, could only turn himself so that he hit the ground first, leaving Hiccup exposed on his back as they hit the ground hard._

* * *

That morning, on Berk:

The previous night's storm had blown over and headed south, leaving the air cooler and muggy, and the ground saturated from all the rain. Fishlegs and Astrid had decided to head out just after breakfast, using the excuse of Fishlegs having asked Astrid to help him work on a fighting technique in order to slip away from the group. Fishlegs continued to study the book while every so often flipping back to the particular map they were following, whilst Astrid kept tabs on their surroundings as they walked. There were a few places marked off with X's that Fishlegs wanted to check out, so at the beginning of the walk he had picked one at random and they followed the mapped out paths through the woods.

"Ok, there should be a path on our left here, right-…huh, there's no path," Fishlegs said as he stared at a thicket on the left side of the trail they were following.

"Maybe it's an overgrown game trail," Astrid suggested, walking up to the bushes to investigate the area further while Fishlegs checked the map again.

"Maybe we took a wrong turn somewhere… We turned left at the basin rock and took a right at the fork-"

"Uh, Fishlegs…"

"-And then followed that for like 20 minutes before following the cross trail for another 5-"

"Fishlegs!" He looked up to find Astrid pushing the bushes out of the way. "Found the trail."

He walked over to have a look, and sure enough, there was a narrow, rocky path that seemed to cut through the hill and slope downwards disappearing around a bend at the bottom.

"Huh," the ever so brave Fishlegs said before puffing out his chest slightly and gesturing with his hand. "Ladies first?" Astrid rolled her eyes.

"Wimp," She said. And with that, she started to carefully make her way down the slope, trying to keep her footing on the still wet rocks, Fishlegs following behind her. She slipped on a rock, but managed to catch herself before she slid very far, and she watched as a few rocks tumbled down the slope, bounced off the wall at the bottom and disappeared around the corner. Unfortunately Fishlegs was less successful in recovering his footing and ended up tumbling past her, and followed the example of the previous rock before she heard a splash upon him disappearing around the corner. Apparently there was water down there. She heard more water splashing and then a flop where she heard him groan in pain for a moment but then fell silent. When she didn't hear anything else, she went the rest of the way down the slope, picking up the book he dropped on the way down, and checked on him…meaning she poked his side with her foot and asked if he was ok. He slowly turned over from his position on his stomach, just enough to look up at her, completely wet thanks to his dive, and gave her a look that clearly said 'Seriously?'

"What? If nothing's broken and you're not dying then you're fine," she said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Now come on, let's keep going."

Fishlegs painfully got up and looked around at their new surroundings. The slope had led them down to the bottom of what looked like a narrow canyon, about 30 feet wide or so, the widest point was above their heads, probably adding another 15 feet or so, though where they stood specifically was only about 10 feet as the remaining space was taken by running water. The walls were easily over 50 feet high, if he had to guess, but only about maybe 20 feet up, the wall seemed to curve over them to form a tunnel like structure that had an open crack at the top, allowing light to flood to the bottom. It looked like something cylindrical cut straight through the rock and then water flowed in. Looking forward along the canyon wall, the walking space they had seemed to stay consistent, so they should hopefully be able to follow it as far as they needed to. The water beside them was flowing at a decent pace, but nowhere near anything that could sweep them away if they fell in, but Fishlegs was kind enough to figure out that it was definitely deep enough for them to take a full dunk if they did happen to fall in, they guessed it was filled up by the rain they just had.

"The slope we came down must be a run off point into the river here. I bet this would flood if we had another storm like last night come through again anytime soon," he stated, rather fascinated with their find.

'How did Hiccup even find this place? We're like 2 hours from the village. Just how much of the forest did he know about that others didn't?'

While he was gawking at the canyon, Astrid looked in either direction for a moment.

"So which way?" She asked, jarring Fishlegs out of his wonder for a moment, making him look at the map again.

"Uuuh, that way," He pointed, "downstream." Astrid turned to look downstream as he walked the opposite direction to see where the stream came from around a corner. He found that it actually kept going, and the canyon walls began to narrow at the top, looking as if it probably closed completely from the surface after a ways, casting the tunnel into darkness. It made him curious to see how far it went though.

"Are you _crazy_ sure that we're supposed to come down here?" she asked, a little uneasy about the prospect of following a path into a seemingly inescapable winding chasm cutting through solid rock.

"Yeah, see?" He replied, showing her the map. "Here's the slope we just came down, now we follow the stream to the fork and go right."

"Couldn't we have gone this way and met this path here?" She asked, pointing to an alternate path that led out and around and eventually met the path they were on.

"Yeah, I imagine we'd have to if this ever flooded, but this is the fasted route. There was this one also that looks faster, but I didn't see it until we had already been walking for like 45 minutes, so I took us down this way. If you'd like to go that way, be my guest, but good luck getting back up that rock slide."

Astrid looked back at the slope in question. From where they stood, it actually looked steeper than it did from the top, and it was hard enough to come DOWN the thing without losing her footing. She sighed and turned back to Fishlegs.

"Fine, let's go." And they were off, following the water flow. After about 20 minutes of walking, the path had been steadily narrowing and finally disappeared entirely under water and dropped off about a foot into the river. Astrid turned back to face Fishlegs.

"Where now genius? I'm not too keen on swimming the rest of the way and freezing to death."

"Thank you for your sympathy on _my_ case. Ok, ummm," He replied as he looked at the map for a second and then around at the canyon walls for some kind of detour. He caught sight of what looked like a ledge about 10 feet above their heads under the overhang.

"Let's try to see if we can get up there," he said as he pointed. Astrid followed where he was pointing and found the ledge he was talking about, and she followed it with her eyes down the canyon wall.

"If it's wide enough, we might be able to follow it," he said as Astrid approached the wall and started looking around for any kind of way to climb. She eventually just started climbing, experimenting with hand and foot holds, until she was hauling herself over the ledge a moment later and disappeared. It was apparently wider than they could tell from below. After she was satisfied that they'd be able to walk the ledge further down she peeked over the edge and called down to Fishlegs.

"How much further do we have to go?" She asked.

"Not far, just around the bend here," he replied.

"Alright, well this should hopefully take us at least that far. Come on," she waved him up. Fishlegs nodded and tucked the book away in his tunic before attempting to climb up the same way Astrid had. Easier said than done. In the time Astrid took to get up to the top of the ledge, Fishlegs had managed to get 2 feet up the wall.

"Sometime today would be nice," She said in a bored tone.

"I'm sorry, but rock climbing isn't exactly a skill I practice! Now shut up and let me concentrate," He snapped back. Astrid just sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Ok, put your right hand right –not there- right there. Ok now move this foot to –NOT RIGHT THERE!" And no sooner had the words left her mouth had Fishlegs lost his grip entirely and hit the ground under him with a grunt. Astrid face-palmed, preparing to sit there for a while as Fishlegs attempted again. About 10 minutes later, he was finally hauling himself over the side of the ledge, panting and sweaty, and flopped onto his back, breathing heavy.

"Congratulations, I'm a hundred years old…" She said in a dull tone from her spot against the wall where she sat cross legged, her chin propped up on her palm with her elbow on her knee.

"Just..give me…a minute…" he said between breaths.

"Fine, lemme see the map," she said, and took the book from Fishlegs' hand as he weakly held it out to her. "Well it doesn't look like we have much further after the fork. Whatever is at the end of this ridiculous adventure better be worth the hassle."

"I doubt Hiccup would've taken the time to map out three different routes to the same location if it wasn't significant to him in some way," Fishlegs said, after having caught his breath.

"I hope so. You good?"

"Yeah," he said with a nod, and the two continued on their way. Sure enough, coming around the bend the canyon split two different directions, causing a fork in the water. To the left it kept going, narrowing at the top as it continued onwards and looking as if it got deeper. To the right, the walls around them seemed to widen and the ledge they were on curved downwards and met the bottom where there was once again a path to walk on. Granted it was still under water, but it was shallow enough to walk in without much trouble.

"You said right, right?" Astrid asked hopefully.

"Yeah, there's another fork in the path on the map not too far up." Astrid nodded her head and continued down the sloped ledge, trying not to slip on the way down. Just another minute later, the walls opened up completely as they exited the canyon walls, the stream continuing onwards and converged with a river coming from somewhere off to their right.

"Finally!" Astrid shouted.

"What, you didn't like the canyon?" Fishlegs asked jokingly.

"I wasn't too keen on the possibility of accidently trapping ourselves in there somehow, no."

"Alright, well it looks like what I thought was a cross trail is this river converging with the one coming out of the canyon. We just have to follow it downstream and we'll be there."

"Finally. How long have we even been walking?" She asked as they found a way across the river and started following wherever it would lead.

Fishlegs looked up to try and gauge the sun's position in the sky.

"Well, we had already been walking for about 2 hours before entering the canyon. It was roughly another hour of actually being IN the canyon, so 3 hours, give or take."

"Yeah, we're not taking that route back. We're going the fast way back that has nothing to do with narrow canyons."

10 minutes of walking later led them to what looked like a cliff side from afar, and they could hear the water plummeting down into some kind of collection beneath it. As they got closer they were greeted by a wide recession in the earth, roughly 50 or so feet deep, that was teaming with life. The river spilled over the edge and into a pond that took up about ¾ of the cove, and lush grass covered most of the crescent shaped area of land that wasn't under water. Trees seemed to grow out of the walls and blocked the sunlight, causing sunbeams to stream in where it could through the leaves and branches as birds chirped and went about their business. It was almost surreal to look at. The two finally came out of their stupor a moment later.

"Let's find a way down," Fishlegs said excitedly. After walking around the perimeter a little ways, they found a steep way down that led to some boulders they take all the way to the bottom. Once both were down, they looked around in awe at the new angle.

"Whoa…" Astrid said. "I didn't even know this was here…"

"Well, Hiccup was here multiple times obviously. He has three different paths mapped out to get here," Fishlegs responded, flipping through the book to try and find any reference to a cove like location. Astrid continued to wander in circles, looking at everything. There was a tree across the way that grew from the top of the wall whose roots cascaded downwards, almost in a dome shape, nestled in a corner that fell under the wall's shadow. The ground underneath it was half submerged in water, and there seemed to be a dark shadow behind the roots as well. Darker than the shadows around it.

Caught up in her curiosity, she walked over to have a look. That's what they were here for anyway, wasn't it? Upon approaching, she found that there seemed to be some kind of hole in the wall, like a cave entrance, or something akin to it. She didn't get too far into investigating further however, as Fishlegs called her back over to look at something.

"What?" Sha asked when she got close enough to not have to shout.

"Look at this and tell me what you see," he said, handing her the book, open to the first page with the dragon drawing on it, and pointing to the boulders they had climbed down.

"Ok, what am I supposed to be looking at?" She asked.

"Look at the background of the picture, and look at the boulders. What do you see?"

She held the book up to see the picture side by side with the boulders. When they had looked at the drawing before, they hadn't paid much attention to the background, as their focus was drawn to the dragon center point. The background didn't seem to hold much significance anyway, as it was just vines and rocks. Being in the cove and looking at it again, however, she realized the background held a lot more significance than they thought.

"They're the same…" she said slowly. Looking over the picture again, just to be sure, only to confirm that this thought was correct. "It was right there…"

"I suddenly see the significance of this place on the map…" Fishlegs said quietly. Then something dawned on Astrid.

"Uh, Fishlegs… there's something that looks like a cave entrance in the wall under the tree over there," She pointed out, equally as quiet. Fishlegs whipped around to look where she was talking about, and his eyes got wide.

"What if it still lives here…?" He whispered.

"Unlikely. We haven't seen a Night Fury here in years."

"We also didn't see the Night Fury that was living here until the raid just before Hiccup disappeared…" Fishlegs countered.

"… Well then if there's any truth to Hiccup's theory on this thing's species, I don't think I want to stick around to find out…" she whispered back. A lapse of silence fell over the two, the only noise being the waterfall and the birds chirping in the background.

"We should probably go, just in case…" Fishlegs suggested quietly, Astrid nodding in agreement.

"As much as I'd like the chance to take down a Night Fury, I don't have my axe, and I don't feel like dying today. Let's go. Let's run this by Gobber when we get back," She replied, walking back up to the boulder they had climbed down, looking for a way back up.

"You sure want to do that? Gobber and the chief took Hiccup's disappearance the hardest, I don't know if we should be dredging this back up with them."

"We're talking about a Night Fury here, Fishlegs. I'm quite sure he'd like to know. Now let's find a way back out," she said, effectively ending the conversation before he could argue further.

"Well, this looks like it goes right out," Fishlegs pointed out a crack in the wall that led up a slope that was illuminated by the sunlight.

"Good luck getting your fat butt through that space," Astrid said with an amused tone, earning a glare from Fishlegs.

"I can, and I will. Watch me."

And with that Fishlegs sucked in his gut as much as he could and started to squeeze his way through the exit. He got about half way through, before he stopped moving and started struggling. Astrid snorted.

"You're stuck aren't you?" she asked, still remaining quiet.

"No, I got it," he grunted out, back absolutely no headway in his exit. Another moment passed before he finally stopped with a huff.

"I'm stuck," he said, defeated.

"Alright, hang on. And stay quiet."

Astrid backed up a little and jumped up, grabbing a thick tree root that jutted out from above them.

"What're you-OOF!" was all he got out. Astrid had swung herself down from the root, using her momentum to slam her feet into his side, effectively shoving him out the other end, and more than likely added to the bruises he had already gotten from his earlier fall.

"You could've warned me first," He groaned as he doubled over in pain while clutching his side.

"You're unstuck aren't you? Now let's go. Which way back? You said there was a faster path that you didn't see earlier."

"Yeah, it's that way," he pointed in the general direction while trying to stand up, clearly sore.

"Alright then, let's go," she said while walking up the steep incline and coming out on the other side, once again at the top of the cove wall.

The walk back was significantly faster than the trip there, by about an hour. Astrid was thankful for the lack of canyon trails to follow on the way back, and they had come out of the tree line behind the chief's hut.

"Huh," Fishlegs said, "How much you wanna bet Hiccup took that trail the most?"

Astrid just sighed and kept walking, tired and glad to be back in the village. She had turned to walk down the path to her hut, intent on getting something to eat.

"You sure you want to run this by Gobber, Astrid?" Fishlegs asked after a moment. "I mean the prospect of this dragon being real, and being a Night Fury still seems a little outlandish, you know? What are the odds that he'll believe us anyway?"

"You're just scared to bring it up because you'll have to explain where you got the book from. You said it yourself. All the details add up. The drawing, the cove, Hiccup's behavior mixed with the Night Fury's appearance followed by Hiccup's _Dis_ appearance? There's enough evidence for Gobber to at least _consider_ the possibility."

"Yeah, but-"

"Possibility of what?" speak of the devil.

"Hey Gobber, we found something today I think you'd be interested in," Astrid said as she made her way to where he stood. He was pulling a cart behind him, looking like he had just made a delivery, no doubt for the reconstruction that was still going on everywhere.

"I think I've go' something you'd be interested in as well," he said.

"Oh yeah?"

"I finished it."

Astrid's eyes widened slightly, and Fishlegs now looked more interested in the conversation than he'd been previously.

"Have you tested it yet?" He asked.

"No' yet. Come have a look," he replied as they all made their way back to the forge, which was now a complete building again.

Upon their arrival, they saw some kind of structure hidden under a sheet tucked away into the back of the forge.

"Hiccup's design sketches had it labeled 'The Mangler', and it was designed to throw bolas. I tweaked a few things and made a few adjustments to its munitions and we have 'The Net Mangler'," as he finished his explanation, he pulled the sheet off of the contraption and there sat what looked like a cannon, until Gobber pulled a lever on the side, and it opened up into a giant crossbow looking weapon. Astrid walked up to examine it, actually impressed by the weapon.

"The Net Mangler?" Fishlegs asked, following Astrid is examining it.

"I thought I ought ta keep the name roughly the same. It was Hiccup's design after all, I just made a few minor changes. The crafty lit'le bugger cooked up a couple of good ones back there. I flipped back through his designs when I finished this one. I think I might run a few of them by Stoick when he gets back."

"Hiccup designed this?" Fishlegs asked. "I figured he was smart, but this is ridiculous."

"Ay, I'm sorry I didn'a give his drawings more than a side glance. Wha' seemed ridiculous back then seems like it would be helpful now."

"Dang," Fishlegs responded. "So what other designs did you look over?"

Gobber waved them to follow him to the back room, and they spent the next hour or so going over some designs that Gobber was considering running by the chief, having forgotten about getting lunch as well as the cove for the time being. By the time they had finally left the forge it was almost time to get dinner. The two, only now remembering how hungry they were, started heading to the Great Hall. Upon reaching the top of the hill, who else is to come around the corner of a building than the one she wanted so badly to chuck off a cliff.

"Hey babe, where ya been all day? I've missed ya, you missed me? I bet you did," Snotlout babbled out while swinging an arm over her shoulders. Not in the mood for anything but food and sleep at the moment, she responded only with a twist of the arm, and continued up the steps to the Great Hall.

Snotlout stood there, clutching his arm for a moment.

"Alright, I'll see ya inside, be there in a minute!" He shouted, his voice landing on deaf ears. He whipped around a grabbed Fishlegs by his tunic and yanked him around to slam him into the wall of the building he had just come out from behind and proceeded to get into the man's face.

"You think I don't see what you're doing, Fish-guts?" he growled.

"What are you talking about Snotlout?" Fishlegs responded with an irritated and confused tone.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about. You don't think I can see through your little guise?" Snotlout poked a finger at Fishlegs' chest for emphasis.

"… _What?_ " Fishlegs asked sharply, now more confused than ever.

"Don't play dumb with me. I'm talking about you taking Astrid into the woods _all_ day. _Alone_. To _train_." He emphasized the word 'train' with dramatic air quotes with his fingers. There was a drawn out silence as Fishlegs just stood there with a blank face processing what Snotlout had just accused him of, while Snotlout himself was giving him a dirty look.

The silence was finally broken when Fishlegs doubled over all of a sudden, hands landing on his knees for support as sharp laughter erupted from his being. Snotlout's face was a combination of anger, offence and confusion as he just watched Fishlegs' body shake as he continued to laugh, which only got harder when he stood upright and saw the look on Snotlout's face. He wound up doubled over again, clutching his stomach and his knees threatening to give out, causing him to lean on the building once more.

"You… you think… that I…and _Astrid?_ -hahahahahaha!" He was barely able to get his words out of his mouth between laughing and trying to catch his breath, which just made Snotlout even angrier.

Snotlout reared his leg back and nailed Fishlegs in the gut, making him wheeze and hit the ground doubled over on his side.

"Just stay away from her, or you'll have to go through ME!" He yelled and then stomped off and up the steps to the Great Hall. Fishlegs was still on the ground both in pain and still unable to stop laughing, and by extension, explain the misunderstanding to Snotlout. His sides were hurting from a combination of the bruises obtained from his earlier hike, Snotlout's kick and laughing so hard, but he couldn't bring himself to care much about the pain or be mad about the kick. The entire situation kept replaying in his head and he found it way too hilarious to care. He'll wait for Astrid to deal with it when she eventually catches wind of this, which wasn't going to take very long if the twins loitering off to the side snickering, having eavesdropped on the whole conversation, was anything to go by.

Astrid did indeed hear about it not even two hours later, and she nearly got her wish of throwing him off of the cliff, albeit by accident. She had punched him and shoved him into a barrel and rolled him down a hill. She had only meant for the barrel to land in the middle of the village where someone would probably help him OUT of the barrel, but as luck would have it, the opposite happened. The barrel of Snotlout sped BETWEEN the buildings, and the only thing that stopped him before he careened off the cliff and into the unforgiving waters below was the lookout post that he slammed into…

Pity.

By the time she had finally gotten Snotlout to leave her alone, at least for the day, the sun had set and the torches were being lit for the nightly watch crew to do their rounds. She had just gotten into bed when she heard the alarm horns blowing, warning the village of an incoming raid. She shot back out of bed, threw her clothes on, grabbed her axe and took off out the door. No sooner had she stepped outside had the dragon hoard arrived and immediately targeted barns and major structures.

'Of all times for there to be a raid! Half of the village is gone on the nest hunt!'

That meant Gobber was in charge with Gustav running the forge…great. She made a beeline for the forge to see if she could catch Gobber before he got too far, and she actually found him and Gustav hauling the Net Mangler out of the building and stationing it just outside.

"Gobber! You sure that thing is going to work?!" She shouted over the noise once she got close enough.

"Best time as ever to find out, isn' it?!" He shouted back as he loaded up the altered munition, which was basically just a double woven net weighted down with rocks, and he shooed Gustav back and swiveled it around to aim a test shot. He shot into the air, missing any potential target, but proving that it does work. He loaded another shot and swiveled around to legitimately take aim, and he fired, catching a Nadder off guard. The force and speed of the net managed to knock the Nadder to the ground and it rolled getting tangled, binding its wings to its sides in the process. All three were thrilled that it worked, but the moment was short lived as they heard a sound that hadn't been heard near Berk in over 14 years. Someone shouted from off somewhere to the side, making everyone echo the same phrase and warning people to take cover.

"Night Fury! Get Down!"

No sooner had this been said did they see and hear it fire a blast from above the northern most point of the village that hit the northern side of the village, completely destroying anything in the immediate vicinity. Immediately following the blast, however, they saw a flash of a dark form pass in front of a torch for a split second at a downward angle, giving them a glimpse of the beast, followed by two consecutive booms of something hitting the same place as the previous shot.

The dragons nearest to the area startled and took off, causing a chain reaction of dragons all over the place grabbing what they had and taking off to follow. Without thinking, Astrid had taken off to survey the area and see what had hit, barely processing the growing hoard of Vikings following her in their own curiosity. When she finally got close enough to see what it was, the area being illuminated by the surrounding fires not too far away, she stopped dead in her tracks. In front of her was a black mass with narrowed green eyes that seemed to be glowing in the firelight, and it was snarling in her direction, the roaring fire behind it and making it a terrifying silhouette. Her mind flashed back to the drawing in Hiccup's journal, mentally comparing the two as her blood went cold.

'Night Fury'

* * *

Miraculously, Hiccup was the first one to recover after the impact. The first thing he became aware of was the throbbing pain in his head and the ringing in his ears. The second thing he was aware of was his general ability to move was restricted by the net, that had caused him and Keh-Teh to fall from the air in the first place, that was still wrapped around them.

.

.

.

KEH-TEH!

Hiccup's mind went into overdrive as the urgency of the situation flooded back to him, and he began to struggle against the ropes in an attempt to get any limb free, his actions being fueled by adrenalin. His struggling was followed by Keh-Teh's own movement as he also began to stir. Hiccup finally managed to get his left arm free and he desperately tried to reach down to grab an object sheathed at his ankle. Keh-Teh's growling caught his attention and he looked up to see a hoard of villagers heading in their direction.

'Shit!' He thought. He reached down and was finally just barely able to reach the object he was going for, managing to wiggle it into his grip. He pulled it up clicked a button on the side and whipped the object sideways in rapid succession and revealed a sharp, retractable short-blade. He thrust it downwards and it sliced through the ropes like they were nothing, finally freeing the two. Hiccup immediately began frantically skimming the area until his eyes landed on Keh-Nah about 30 yards away and made a beeline in her direction looking for Arman. Keh-Teh stayed put and snarled at the approaching group of villagers, making himself look as threatening as possible, causing them to freeze in place. He attempted to spread his wings to make himself appear larger, but the action caused searing pain to shoot through the nerves of his right wing, making him cry out in pain.

The pain alone should've told him what was wrong, but he glanced sideways to confirm. He wasn't able to move his wing much without it hurting, and by the look of it, it was broken, no doubt from the heavy net bending it into an unnatural position when it hit him. Hiccup must've heard him cry out, as he was calling out to him now from where Keh-Nah was.

" **Keh-Teh! Can you fly?!** "

" **The net broke my wing!"** He called back quickly, not daring to take his eyes off of the villagers as they began slowly moving outwards, forming a partial circle. He continued to snarl as he backed up to stay close to the other three, but far enough that they won't get hurt by any sudden moves from either party. He guessed they may have discovered his handicap as they began moving a little more quickly now to surround them, still pushing him backwards. One burly Viking lunged out with a battle cry and a moment of either courage or stupidity…probably both. This one motion spurred a chain reaction of Vikings swarming in behind him in a similar fashion.

' **Not good!'**

* * *

" _Alright Hiccup. Now I want ye to stand here, and watch what I do," Gobber instructed as he began demonstrating the skill he was teaching Hiccup. Per the chief's urging, he had managed to convince the boy to learn how to use a weapon of his choice. Unsurprisingly, he had chosen a dagger, because it was small Gobber supposed, but a small weapon also mean closer combat. Apparently Hiccup thought of that himself as he had actually asked Gobber to teach him how to throw it, leading them to the point they're at now, standing in front of a target that Gobber had set up in front of the woods, so Hiccup wouldn't hurt anyone while he practiced._

" _Feet apart, shoulders square, eyes forward and line the blade up with your target," Gobber said as he walked Hiccup through the proper stance, having the boy mirror him as he went. "Now ye pull it back, by yer ear, not that far…"_

 _He went about correcting the boy's stance before continuing on, both unaware of the pair of eyes that were watching them from the within the brush of the tree line._

" _Alright, now when yer arm is straight out like this, ye let it go," Gobber continued with his demonstration, letting the dagger go and watched it fly through the air and stick into the wooden target. "Now you."_

 _Hiccup pulled his arm back and threw the dagger forward, letting go a little too early and at an angle, causing the dagger to arc far too high and off to the left, only to bounce off of a tree several feet behind the target._

" _Well, ya got some nice distance. We'll work on yer aim, now go get it and we'll try again."_

 _The lesson continued for about an hour and a half before Gobber finally let Hiccup go, to which he happily trotted into the woods once he was sure that no one was watching. The eyes that had been watching him through his lesson disappeared into the shadows when the boy entered the woods and walked down the path he knew so well. They continued to follow him, silently slinking through the trees, having no trouble keeping up with him as he walked. It wasn't until he heard a snap behind him that he was made aware that he was being followed. He turned around and scanned the trees for any sign that would tell him who or what it was following him, unable to find anything._

 _He turned and continued along cautiously, glancing around for any kind of movement and keeping his ears open for any more noise behind him. Every so often he'd peek over his shoulder in paranoia as he began his usual tactic for losing any tail that may have followed him. He took off running and weaved through the thick trees, jumping from trail to trail until he was sure that he was once again alone. He stopped to lean on a tree and catch his breath for moment, and in that moment, he realized that it wasn't a tree he was leaning on._

 _Just as he was about to look at what was behind him, he felt a wide, slimy tongue run up the back of his neck and over his head._

" _EW!" He cried out, now knowing exactly who had been following him. "Toothless!_ _ **What is**_ **wrong** _ **with you?!**_ _"_

 _Said assailant was currently on the forest floor laughing while the boy tried in vain to wipe the saliva off of his being. Keh-Teh stood up just as Hiccup had swung his arm around in an attempt to punch him, but his momentum betrayed him and he landed on the ground instead, leaves and dirt sticking to his head._

" _ **Nice one, fishbone,"**_ _Keh-Teh said, looking down at the scowling boy. Then, just to get more of a rise out of him, he licked him again, this time across the face, getting an immediate reaction out of the boy. The two took off through the woods, Hiccup running after the dragon in a comedic twist of their usual game of chase._

 _By the time that they arrived at the cove, Hiccup was covered head to toe in dirt and leaves and was trudging behind a very satisfied looking Keh-Teh. Alaba looked on as they entered with a little confusion as Hiccup made a beeline for the pond and started attempting to wash the saliva off of him. Keh-Teh took that opportunity to sneak up behind him and push him fully into the water, spurring another round of yelling followed by splashing. Alaba just shook her head fondly and went inside the cave that was hidden in the shadows under the roots of a large tree that hung down, almost in a partial globe-like shape, and retrieved the bag of dry clothes for Hiccup. He had gotten into the habit of keeping a fresh change of clothing at the cove for its convenience, usually for times like this when Keh-Teh decided to ruin his current clothing. She set the bag down by a rock for when they decided to get out of the water, and then she dropped some wood into the fire pit that Hiccup had set up a while back in front of the cave entrance, and lit it with a weak fireball, before disappearing back into the mouth of the cave._

 _By the time she came back out, only a moment later, Hiccup had gotten out of the water and had begun changing into his dry clothes while laying out his wet clothes on the rock in the sun to dry. She walked over to meet him at the fire with the small fish that she had caught about a half hour ago hanging from her jaws. Well, small for a dragon anyway. Hiccup smiled and skewered the fish and began roasting it over the fire as Alaba laid down behind him._

" _ **So besides your brother giving you a bath on the way in, how was your day?"**_ _She asked in amusement._

" _Gobber gave me a lesson on how to throw a dagger today," Hiccup answered, actually sounding slightly irritated._

" _ **Oh? And how'd you do?"**_

" _ **Horribly,"**_ _Keh-Teh chimed in._

" _ **Shut up! It was my first lesson!**_ _" Hiccup shot back._

" _ **You don't seem very happy about this,"**_ _Alaba pointed out, and Hiccup shook his head._ _ **"Can I ask why?"**_

" _ **Because everyone is trying to push me to do things I don't want to do. My dad says I need to be more…**_ _Viking-like. Gobber_ _ **said that I**_ **had** _ **to choose a weapon to learn how to use, so I picked a**_ _dagger._ _ **I don't want to kill dragons like everyone else wants me to, and I don't like how close you have to get when you use a**_ _sword or an axe._ _ **So I asked if he would show me to throw a**_ _dagger," Hiccup replied, switching languages every so often when he knew there wasn't a word for what he was trying to say. He discovered this early on, and needless to say, it made conversation interesting._

" _ **Show you**_ **how** _ **to throw one,"**_ _she corrected him._

" _ **What about those curved sticks with the thin vine thing on it?"**_ _Keh-Teh asked._

" _ **What?**_ _"_

" _ **You know, you pull it back and shoot a pointy stick from it?"**_

" _ **OH!**_ _Bow and arrow._ _ **I'm not strong enough to use one of those. It's hard to pull the line back.**_ _"_

" _ **Well, from their point of view, being one of their young, they're just trying to teach you what you'll need to know for when you're older."**_

" _ **They want me to fight dragons, and I can't do that after all that I learned! And I can't**_ **tell** _ **them what I learned or they hunt for you!**_ _"_

" _ **They**_ **will** _ **hunt**_. _ **"**_

" _Whatever! They'll try to kill you!" Hiccup exclaimed, throwing his arms up is exasperation._

" _ **Eketeb, despite what you might think, it might actually be a good idea to learn from them anyway."**_

 _Hiccup and Keh-Teh both gave her incredulous looks._

" _ **I don't mean kill, just learn how to fight our kind. Teh-bah, what if you find yourself in a situation where neither Neukete nor I can help you? Hm? What will you do?**_ _"_

 _Hiccup looked down at his lap, mulling over the question in his head, realizing that she was right. What if something like that_ did _happen? They weren't_ always _going to be around if something happened…_

 _He was silent for a little longer before finally answering._

" _ **I guess you're right. But I still don't want to. I don't want to hurt dragons.**_ _"_

" _ **Well Teh-bah, not all dragons are nice. You will come across one in your life at some point that wants to hurt you, and you still have to be able to defend yourself. Even if that means hurting them in the process. Dragons fight all the time for various reasons. Just because we don't want to hurt them doesn't mean we won't if we are forced to make that decision."**_

 _Hiccup nodded slowly, finally understanding what she was getting at._

" _ **Hey Fishbone, you burnt your dinner,"**_ _Keh-Teh said suddenly, making Hiccup look up to see that he had indeed burnt one side of his fish._

" _DANG IT!_ _ **Why didn't you say something?!**_ _"_

" _ **I just did!"**_

 _And with that, the surrogate siblings went on bickering playfully with each other, despite Hiccup being legitimately unhappy with his overcooked fish, while Alaba continued mulling over the previous conversation. She knew she couldn't keep him from the village, no matter how much she wanted to. He needed to grow up with his own kind and learn proper skills from them. It hurt to see him struggle with the bullying, but there wasn't much she could do except give him an escape, if only for a little while. She always has to convince herself that it's better for him to stay here, just a little longer before he made his own decision to leave or stay…Although…_

 _A thought had popped into her head just then, but she quickly shook it away, deciding against it for the time being. But that didn't stop it from continuing to bounce around in her head._

' _ **I wonder what**_ **she** _ **would have to say…**_ _'_

* * *

Eketeb/Teh-Bah: Hiccup  
Neukete/Keh-Teh: Toothless  
Alaba/Mama: The white Night Fury.

So the type of canyon I am talking about in the beginning is called a Slot Canyon, though the specific one I was inspired by was the Subway Slot Canyon in Zion National Park. It's pretty dang cool, look it up.

So Astrid is now on board with Fishlegs' investigation, Snotlout is still an idiot and Hiccup finally comes face to face with his past.

In the next chapter, we shall see how this plays out

I don't have anything else to really say here, so till next time!


	8. Ch 7: Discoveries

In response to the guest reviewer who asked (new comment posted on chapter three) "How can you 'value' what reviewers think when you don't take at least some reviews 'to heart'? Just curious."

First of all, I never stated that I don't take _any_ reviews to heart, and I can't figure out where I said anything to imply this…

I value the reviews that I get quite a bit actually, and have taken advice given by a handful of them that, admittedly, cleaned up my story quite a bit. And I also value all the criticism I get, as most of it helps me fix something and make it better. I've gotten a couple of comments that actually made me rethink some details, because they gave me an idea that worked better than what I had originally thought of.

I didn't take that one in question too seriously because the way it read told me that the opinion of the reader was that "If there is no Hiccstrid, then it won't be a good story", to which my first reaction was "I BEG TO DIFFER! I ACCEPT YOUR CHALLENGE!"…Ok so I maybe I took it to heart in a defiant way… the way you asked your question, however, implied that I ignore _all_ comments, and that is absolutely not true. What I ignore is when a reviewer posts a comment for the sake of stirring something up. For the love of all things holy you guys, if you see a comment like that, just leave it be, don't even acknowledge its presence.

As it turned out though, that particular reviewer actually continued reading, regardless of their first comment, so I do say thank you for that. (If you're still reading the story, I do hope you're enjoying it. Regardless of its Hiccstrid-less…ness…Yeah I'll go with that. And if you're actually the same commenter I am currently answering, cool beans ) But anyway to answer the question, how I take some comments and whether or not I take them personally depends on the comment itself.

Anyway guys, chapter production is a slower process right now than I want it to be because of my wrists. I can type for a certain amount of time before I need to stop for a couple of days. But during the downtimes, when I'm not able to write new content for the chapters, I am able to go back to make any simple corrections needed to typos. **WHICH REMINDS ME!**

 **GUYS!** Can you do me a really big favor, and _point out_ any typos you find while you're reading? I go over my chapter like 10 times, and STILL miss things that need correction, such as words missing from sentences, additional word in sentences or misspellings. If you see stuff like this, PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT IT SO I CAN FIX IT! The way my mind is, I miss those types of errors all the time, no matter how many times I've proof read it.

Alright, that's all for now.

 **Disclaimer:** None of the How to Train Your Dragon characters belong to me! They all belong to the wonderful character design team at DreamWorks studios that worked on the movies. The characters you do _not_ recognize however, are all of my own creation, as well as the language that appears in this story.

* * *

 _Previously:_

" _ **Keh-Teh! Can you fly?!**_ _"_

" _ **The net broke my wing!"**_ _He called back quickly, not daring to take his eyes off of the villagers as they began slowly moving outwards, forming a partial circle. He continued to snarl as he backed up to stay close to the other three, but far enough that they won't get hurt by any sudden moves from either party. He guessed they may have discovered his handicap as they began moving a little more quickly now to surround them, still pushing him backwards. One burly Viking lunged out with a battle cry and a moment of either courage or stupidity…probably both. This one motion spurred a chain reaction of Vikings swarming in behind him in a similar fashion._

' _ **Not good!'  
**_

* * *

He glanced back quickly while trying to keep the Vikings at bay with his other wing and tail, but he only caught site of Hiccup and Keh-Nah.

" **Where is Arman?!"**

" **Unconscious! We need to leave now!"** Keh-Nah called back. At that moment, one of the Vikings, either insanely stupid or insanely brave, or maybe just insane, appeared in front of him with a battle cry and his axe raised, aiming for a frontal assault, and he fired a shot at the ground between them to both knock them back and skew their vision in a cloud of dust as he whipped around and ran back to Keh-Nah. That wasn't their escape however, as the Vikings had circled around the other side as well, so Keh-Nah was fending off her own wave of Vikings. A group had made its way toward Hiccup, whether they intended to capture or kill he wasn't sure, nor did he care, but he turned and was about to make his way to fight them off when he was cut off by another group attacking him. He roared at them and bashed them sideways, now unable to turn his back to help Hiccup.

Keh-Nah was in a similar situation, trying to protect Arman, whom was still passed out on the ground, while Hiccup had his own mess of problems. He was currently occupied with dodging swings that were clearly aimed to do some serious damage and trying to find an opening to escape through. He was in constant movement, ducking, rolling and spinning out of the reach of weapons coming at him from every direction. His every move was smooth and precise and it almost looked like a dangerous dance between blades. He finally managed to escape some of the on slot of blades by catching an axe aimed at his head under the curve of its blade with his own sword and twisting it out of the Viking's grip, slinging it behind him in the process. This caused another that was behind him to duck in order to avoid getting hit, giving him the split second opportunity he needed. Immediately following the axe's direction, Hiccup jumped up and kicked off of the man that was still bent over in his ducking position and rebounded off the man he disarmed, making him double back and vault over the first man he kicked off of. The Vikings around him didn't react fast enough to grab him before he made it behind them and out in the open.

Not wasting a second, Hiccup bent down and snatched another retracted blade from his other ankle and extended it with a sharp whip of his arm. By the time the Vikings had recovered from their brief collision and turned to face him as he swung the blades around for just a second in a flashy show of skill before he crouched low with one leg extended in front of him. He held one blade over his head, pointing it at his challengers, and he had flipped the other blade around in his hand in a backwards hold and held that one out in front of him in a defensive position.

After a slight moment of hesitation, several Vikings charged forward with their weapons raised. Hiccup lunged forward and met the first blade of an axe aimed at his midsection with his left blade, hooking it under the curve and twirling his body around to rip the handle out of their hand as he followed through with a swing of his other arm and managing to slice his attacker's side. It wasn't deep enough to cause any serious damage, but it was enough to make the man back off. As Hiccup turned he was met with a long sword, the sudden weight of the weapon caught him off guard for a second and he stumbled backward a step, barely managing to dodge the fist that flew toward his face just in time. He ducked underneath it and landed a kick to the man's gut, barely registering the man doubling over as two more Vikings came at him from behind with battle cries.

He kicked off of the man's shoulder, knocking him over in the process, and he hooked his arm around the neck of one Viking and swung around the backside and landed a kick to the other one's cheek, knocking them both to the ground, along with himself. This constant barrage continued on until one of his blades met with an axe wielded by a young woman that glared with hatred and determination at him.

'Ok, I've had about enough of this.'

Hiccup brought his second sword up to the one he blocked with and scraped the sharp blades together, causing a spark to ignite the previously unseen substance that coated both blades. The young woman cried out in surprise and stumbled backward from the sudden heat of the flame that appeared in front of her face.

* * *

Astrid looked up in a brief moment of shock at the fire engulfed swords. She couldn't even make out the shape of the blades anymore, the metal just seemed to meld into the flame, making the man look as if he wielded the flame itself in his hands. She shook her head and lunged at him again, rolling under his block and landing back on her feet behind him and swung her axe at his back. He whipped around just in time to catch her axe and twist it out of her grip and he grabbed her arm and fell to his back. She felt his foot hit her gut just before she was launched into the air over him and she hit the ground hard. Not wanting to waste any time, she got to her feet as quick as she could and she swung her fist around to nail him in the back of the head while he suddenly became occupied with another opponent, but he ducked just in time and nailed the man in the nether region, making him double over with a cry of pain and before she could register what was happening, she felt his fist meet her midsection and she hit the ground and started coughing and gasping for air.

She barely registered him take off in another direction yelling in a language that she'd never heard before. It took her a minute before she could actually take in some breaths and she rolled to her hand and knees just in time to see that the man had Gobber pinned to the ground with a flaming blade at his throat and neither were moving. All of a sudden everything was interrupted by the telltale sound of one of the Night Furies charging a blast before shooting it in their direction. She saw the man roll off of Gobber and out of the way of the fireball and watched as Vikings scattered and the other dragon fire its own shot to scatter them further and it took off on the heels of its rider toward the other one. He picked up another man that was laying beneath the first dragon, someone she hadn't even realized was there, and he got on the dragon's back and they all took off on foot toward the edge of the village with about a dozen Vikings in tow as they headed straight for the tree line and disappeared into the darkness.

She took a moment to fully compose herself and she stood up, a little shaky but fine, and made her way over to Gobber, whom was still on the ground.

"Gobber!" She called out, but received no answer. He didn't look hurt, so she tried again when she got closer.

"Gobber," She bent down over his face to get his attention and he blinked up at her. 'What had shocked him so much that he would freeze?'

"Gobber, you ok?" She finally received a shaky nod after a couple seconds and she helped him sit up. He looked around for a moment, seemingly in confusion.

"Where'd they go?"

"They disappeared behind the tree line, some of the villagers went after them."

"If they come back without them, we'll send out an organized search and fan out."

Astrid nodded and simply watched as Gobber hobbled off back to the forge, no acknowledging anything else around him.

The villagers didn't take long to return, having lost track of them rather quickly. Apparently Night Furies could be just as elusive on the ground as in the air. Astrid had relayed Gobber's order and all who were able began to organize groups to head out and look for any signs of the riders. She walked into the forge, intending to ask Gobber which group he'd like to join but stopped when she saw him bent over a table in the back of the forge with a troubled look over his features.

"Are you not joining the search?" she asked quietly. Gobber looked up and shook his head.

"Put Hork in charge of the search."

"Where's Gustav?"

"Helping with the cleanup," he said, blankly.

"You look upset," she pointed out. When she didn't receive an answer, she continued. "Well, I'm sure the search parties can find them. One was unconscious, a dragon was injured and can't fly, so they couldn't have gotten far. Those dragon loving bastards will be found and brought back."

"Tha's not wha's botherin' me," He replied.

"Then what?" Gobber paused for a moment before answering.

"His eyes." After a second Astrid nodded.

"I didn't catch his eyes. I only saw his mask."

"I did."

"And?"

Gobber shook his head again as if not wanting to answer, but did anyway after a second of silence.

"They were too…familiar."

"Familiar how?" she asked, now confused.

"Astrid, call me crazy, but," he turned to look at her straight on, "They made me think of Hiccup."

Astrid stopped for a second and gave him a disbelieving look.

"I know it's insane. Hiccup's gone, I know that. But…I looked directly into his eyes, and for some reason, I saw Hiccup those eyes. And then I see this drawin', _Hiccup's_ drawin', and it looked _exactly_ like those DEVILS!" He marched up to her and thrust the drawing into her face for her to look, making her have to rear back to see it clearly. It looked like a rougher, sketchier version of the drawing she and Fishlegs saw in Hiccup's journal.

Gobber walked back over to the desk after a moment and put his hand down to support himself as he hung his head.

"I know it's crazy, but that's what I saw."

After a long moment of silence, Astrid finally spoke up.

"Did Fishlegs join the search parties?"

"…I dunno. Why?"

"Because he has something I think you should see. It may be related to all of this."

Gobber gave her a confused look, but she didn't elaborate any further. He shook his head before replying.

"It can wait until tomorrow. Go home Astrid. Get some rest."

"No, I'll stay up and help with the cleanup. You going to be ok?" Gobber nodded, but didn't say anything further. Finally deciding it was best to leave him be for the night, she turned and walked back out of the forge, leaving Gobber alone once again. The image of the hyperactive child that used to spend so much time in the forge kept flashing in his head, right alongside the eyes behind the mask of the man he faced in the field. Gobber sighed and rested his head in his hands, troubled, angry and confused all at once, just as he did when Hiccup disappeared so long ago.

* * *

The next morning found Hiccup and the others hiding out in the cove, having decided it'd be best to rest for the night. He'd thought that it wasn't likely that they'd be found in the cave, even if the cove was discovered, as the cave system actually stretched on for quite a ways and he knew that it also had a couple of exit routes they could use if need be.

Hiccup slowly blinked back into consciousness, his mind fuzzy and taking a moment to remember where they were. He sat up and rubbed his face before looking around sleepily. The cave they were currently hiding out in was the one that Alaba and Keh-Teh used most often when they lived on the island, as it was the first room you came to after entering the tunnel, though you only had to walk back about 30 feet before you walk right into it. The water from the pond fed into the cave and ran past the room they were in and disappeared into the darkness of the winding tunnels within the cave system. Exploration told him long ago let that it actually let out into a narrow canyon eventually. Over time, the water had cut through the rock, creating the bridge that they had to walk on to get into the room in the first place. The room itself was small in comparison to the rest of the system, but still large enough for at least a small family of dragons to live in comfortably. The room's walls were about 30 feet tall and curved at the top, sloping back down on the other side of the stream about 40 feet away from them. At the back of the room was a crack near the top that penetrated all of the way outside, big enough to allow a descent amount of light into the cave, but not enough for an adult to be able to climb through. They were currently laying at the very back of the room, against the wall, where the light didn't hit, effectively keeping their forms hidden in shadow.

A moment of scanning the room told Hiccup that Keh-Nah was already awake and had left the cave. He simply sat there for another moment, listening to the different sounds around him. The quiet trickling of the water seemed loud in the silence of the room, and the sound echoed throughout the cave system. The crack in the room along with the actual mouth of the cave brought in enough airflow that was redirected by the curved walls to flow further into the darkness, producing a sort of eerie whistle to sound throughout the tunnels as it went, mingling with the sound of the water flow. In the midst of the sounds produced by the cave itself, you could hear the echo of birds chirping just outside of the entrance. Hiccup smiled briefly, finding a little comfort from the stress in the familiarity of the environment, before he finally decided to stand up and stretch.

Feeling a shift in the weight behind him, he looked back to see that Keh-Teh was also stirring, no doubt waking up after feeling Hiccup move. He let out a big toothy yawn and stretched his front legs out in front of him before pulling back and arching his back as well, resembling a cat waking up from an afternoon nap. With the light in the room, he was finally able to get a clear view of the damage from the previous night. Keh-Teh's right wing was limp and he could see where the bone was broken. He did not, however, see any other major damage, aside from a few scratches that were already healing. Thank the gods that dragons have tough skin and can heal quickly. That wing would have to be addressed though.

Looking to his right where Keh-Nah had been laying previously, he spotted Arman right where they left him, wrapped up in a blanket, still unconscious. Hiccup quietly walked over to his brother and pulled the blanket back, just enough to have a look at his right arm. He had spotted the injury that had been bleeding as they were settling down to rest the night before. It had been too dark to really examine it at the time, making him simply wrap it up to stop the bleeding for the night. Seeing it in the light, though, he was able to see that a bone in Arman's forearm was broken and out of place and the blood had come from where the bone punctured the skin, and the area around it was swollen. Further inspection over Arman's body told him that his right ankle was also swollen, but he couldn't see any outward signs of broken bones. He wasn't able to see any other sort of injury, aside from a few scratches and bruises here and there. He suspected that the biggest injuries were probably from when he and Keh-Teh slammed into them in the air, which means Keh-Nah was able to keep him from getting any further injuries upon their crash landing. When he passed out though, he wasn't sure.

'I'll have to ask Keh-Nah when she- oh,' Said dragon came walking into the room with a sack full of fish hanging from her mouth, interrupting his thought.

" **Good morning boys,"** she said after setting the fish down. **"Been fishing this morning. Breakfast is served."**

She plucked two fish out of the pile for Hiccup and Arman just before Keh-Teh dug in, and dropped them next to Hiccup as he reached for one of their bags that had been on Keh-Nah's saddle previously.

" **So, how bad?"** she asked as he rummaged around in another bag, not finding what he was looking for.

"Well, His arm is broken and the bone punctured the skin, which was the blood we found. His ankle is swollen and discolored, but I can't see if there's any injury to the bone or not. Other than that, just a few scratches," He said rummaging through a third bag. "When did he lose consciousness?"

" **I think when you guys hit us. He went limp and fell off of my back."**

"Well, I didn't see any serious injury to his head. Maybe just a bump, but he should be ok- where the heck is Arman's medical bag?"

" **It's not here?"**

"No, it isn't."

" **Hmm. I'll go look outside. Maybe it came off when we jumped down here last night."**

Hiccup sighed and rubbed his temples. 'What a nightmare of a situation to be in…'

* * *

Meanwhile at the village, another search party was gearing up to head out. A smaller group had come back from the with a bag that they assumed belonged to the riders, containing herbs and various medical supplies, and they opted to leave it with the healer for further inspection as they rallied up some more man power. Some of the more skillful hunters in the village managed to pick up a trail to follow, and they decided it was best to gather more men in the group before attempting to follow it, just in case. As for the rest of the village, those not searching at any given time were continuing with the cleanup and preparing to begin the rebuilding process. The damage was significantly less than usual due to the shortness of the attack, but there was a little more to add to the list of repairs anyway.

Astrid had managed to locate Fishlegs and talked him into going to the forge with her to check up on Gobber, whom looked like he hadn't even gone home the previous night. He was still in the back room, where Astrid had last seen him, but he had several of Hiccup's old drawings scattered around him all over the table and the floor, and Gustav was nowhere to be seen again. Most likely out and about upon the smith's request.

"Gobber?" Astrid said softly, getting his attention. "Did you get any sleep last night?" Gobber shook his head with a soft 'no'.

"Never even left the forge."

Astrid exchanged a concerned look with Fishlegs before speaking up again.

"Gobber, I wanted to show you this yesterday, and after you saying what you did last night, I really think you need to look at something."

Gobber looked up and waited for them to speak. Astrid looked over at Fishlegs, prompting him to go first and he nervously stepped forward with the book in hand.

"I, uh… I found this book a few days ago that I believe was Hiccup's," He said. That caught Gobber's attention, and he narrowed his eyes.

"I found it somewhere, not here, that was, uh, in the, um…here," He said lamely, and put the book on the desk immediately backed up. Astrid rolled her eyes as Gobber opened the book and stopped at the first page. He looked to the side where the Night Fury sketch was, and then picked it up to compare the two drawings side by side. After a moment of silence he turned back to Fishlegs.

"What is this?" He asked suspiciously with a slight accusatory tone. Fishlegs looked like he wanted to run to spare himself from the Viking rage that he saw beginning to bubble up in the smith's eyes, so Astrid mercifully took over.

"Just read it, it's important," She said gesturing to the book.

He kept his expression trained on Fishlegs a little longer before looking back at the book. Flipping through, he narrowed his eyes a little more with every sketch or note he looked at. He only got about a quarter of the way through the book, before deciding he'd seen enough, and harshly turning to address to the two.

"Wha' do you two think yer doin', eh?" He asked, his tone of voice clearly indicating how thin the ice they were standing on had become.

"Wait, I know how crazy it seems, but if you just look through the rest of the book!" by this point, Fishlegs was trying to get her to leave, not wanting to be in the line of fire, but Astrid ignored him and pulled herself from his grip. "There are clues in there that could shed light on the mystery riders from last night, or maybe even solve the mystery about Hiccup. And you even said that the one rider-"

"What?! The rider from last night? What about him?! He's a dragon loving bastard that came flying in on that BEAST and attacked the village last night!"

"But Hiccup-"

"Astrid!" Fishlegs tried to cut in, having figured out where she was trying to go with her argument, but the smith cut back in, ignoring him entirely.

"Hiccup is _GONE_! He's DEAD, and he's _not_ coming back! What more are you trying to find?!"

"But last night-!"

"Was a moment fueled by adrenaline, frustration an-and fatigue! It means NOTHING!"

"What about the drawing?! There's a page in the book that-"

"The drawing is nothing! All it says is that Hiccup found a beast in the woods that probably had him for dinner when he got too curious to leave it be!" Astrid was about to try to respond when Gobber silenced her with a finger pointed in her direction. "Now, I want NO MORE talk about this! And I want you two OUT THERE _FINDING_ those demons, and bring. Them. BACK!" He ended his rant by choving them out of the forge entirely, and turning his back to them to go back inside, not leaving any room for further comment.

The two stood in silence for a moment before Fishlegs, in a rare moment of boldness, turned to glare at Astrid.

"What the _Hel_ is wrong with you?" He asked.

"ME?!" She questioned back angrily.

"YES you! What were you _thinking_?! In _what_ world was any of that a good idea?" He gestured to the forge with his question.

"First of all, I didn't think he would get that upset. I thought he'd be more interested-"

"Oh really? The thought never _once_ crossed your mind?!"

"-and second! Hiccup wrote in his journal that he found _Night Furies_. He disappears after a Night Fury shows up in a raid, and then TWO Night Furies appear in _last night's_ raid with _riders_."

"What is that supposed to mean?! HUH?! What it tells _me_ , is there are two people that turned against their own people to join up with _dragons_! At _what_ point in our investigations did you completely lose your mind?"

"Oh, I've lost my mind?!"

"YES, YOU HAVE! When had that idea even come into your head, and why in the Odin's name did you decide to skip over running it by me before running to tell _Gobber_?!"

"Since when do I need _your_ permission?!" She burst out, now getting defensive. "THINK ABOUT THIS! There are TWO Night Furies with _riders_! Yes it's wrong, but you don't think that there's even a slight possibility that it could mean Hiccup isn't dea-"

"And that speculation alone is what riled him up, Astrid!" Fishlegs replied, gesturing toward the forge with his arm for emphasis. "We just pushed him back into the way he behaved after Hiccup disappeared! What if Hiccup really _is_ dead? We just reopened a giant wound that has been festering for 14 years, because of a theory that you can't even _prove_! And now all that pain that Gobber felt then has resurfaced because YOU wanted to show him the journal after what happened last night, with the _presumption_ that there is a SLIM possibility that Hiccup MIGHT still be ALIVE!"

By this point in the argument, the two had gotten loud enough to draw attention from any nearby villagers that were now staring wide-eyed having stopped whatever activity they were doing prior in order to spectate.

"Look me in the eyes and tell me that you don't think the same thing! That the clues don't add up to that!" She countered. Fishlegs took a step forward and looked directly into her eyes as he shouted back, making her recoil slightly.

"I DON'T think the same thing! I think YOU saw the facts the way you _wanted_ to and drew a conclusion that YOU wanted to be RIGHT!"

" _EXSCUSE_ ME?!" She screamed back, anger clear in her eyes.

" _Nothing_ in this entire situation gives ANY indication that Hiccup is alive! There's a high chance that the two occurrences aren't even related! And all the _book_ shows is that he discovered a Night Fury living on the island, and that discovery probably cost him his life! And whether you want to believe it or not, YOU'RE feeling guilty, and that's making you ONLY see the things that you WANT to BE _TRUE_!"

He stepped back and spun around to put his back to her while taking his helmet off and raking a hand through his hair. She was about to reply when he whipped around and beat her to it.

"I never should've let you come along! And _I_ should have left it alone! So if you're about to tell me that _I'm_ at fault, then fine!" He spread his arms out as he continued, "I take the blame for sparking too much curiosity! But you are NOT gonna drag me down with you when you start stirring up shit that had been put to rest years ago!" And with that, he turned and briskly walked away from her, closing off any opportunity for her to get back in his face with any kind of response. She couldn't come up with any words for one anyway, so she just sent a death glare in his direction as he walked away. She noticed the crowd staring and snapped her glare in their direction, making them scatter immediately, leaving her alone in that spot, fuming.

* * *

By that afternoon, Arman had finally woken up and Hiccup gave him a rundown of situation. They still hadn't found Arman's medical bag, and it was too dangerous to head out too far with the villagers searching for them. They eventually came to the conclusion that if they dropped it on the way in, then the search parties probably found it and took it back to the village, which put them at a little disadvantage. Arman had talked Hiccup through fixing up Keh-Teh's wing, putting the bone back in place so it'd heal properly. Then came the exciting task of fixing up Arman's arm as best as they could, which was about 20 minutes of painfully trying to get the bone back into place so they could get his arm wrapped up in a makeshift sling with Arman close to passing out from the pain in the process.

"I'm honestly shocked the impact of a two thousand pound dragon slamming into you didn't do more damage to your leg," Hiccup said as he was finishing up wrapping Arman's arm.

"Well, my leg was a little more protected against Keh-Nah's neck," Arman responded with a tired shrug. "My ankle somehow got twisted weird though, cause this is definitely a sprain."

"Well, at least she was able to shield you from the brunt of it all, so aside from those two, a few scratches are all you got out of all of that."

"How'd _you_ get out unscathed?"

"Believe me, I didn't..." Arman started to chuckle lightly at this, but that soon turned into a coughing fit that seemingly came out of nowhere.

"You ok?" Hiccup asked, now concerned and handed him some water.

"Yeah, I'm alright," He replied after a drink. "I think I'm gonna get some more rest though. I feel really tired."

Hiccup nodded on response and covered his brother back up as he laid down while Keh-Nah laid down behind him to provide extra warmth on the cold ground. The sun was beginning to get low in the sky while Hiccup sat at the mouth of the cave, but far enough in that he couldn't be seen from outside, watching the light fade from the sky. His mind was speeding through their current situation and every possible scenario they could be in because of it. The loss of Arman's medical bag put them in a bind, as it held everything that they needed right now for Arman and Keh-Teh. Actually, Keh-Teh he wasn't too worried about. His wing should be able to heal fine on its own, dragons are really resilient. Arman on the other hand is only human, and he didn't like the way the wound on his arm was looking when he was cleaning it earlier, though it was hard to tell if there was anything else wrong with it, aside from the bone breaking the skin. It was swollen, which he expected with a wound like that, but there was a little more reddening of the skin around it than he thought there should have been. Hopefully it should heal now though after being cleaned and wrapped up.

The possibility of needing to go after their bag in the village ran through his head while he tried to think up every alternative they had, which there weren't many of. After a while, his mind started to wander back to when he and Keh-Teh were young and Alaba was still around, and a small smile played on his lips at some of the memories he had. When it was nearly completely dark, he sighed and stood up, pants a little damp from the rock he was sitting on, and made his way back into the cave, deciding it was time to turn in. He didn't have to worry about needing to keep watch, as he knew the dragons would sleep lightly and be on alert for anything anyway, so he curled up under Keh-Teh's wing and laid his head on the dragon's paw. After a few more minutes of just lying there, he finally drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

* * *

 _About a year had gone by since Hiccup's first language lesson with Alaba in the cove, and he had gotten pretty good at speaking it, using it exclusively whenever he was either alone or in the cove so he could perfect it. Snotlout and the twins finally stopped following him into the woods, since they lost track of him and then got lost themselves every time. Not to mention they got berated every time they got back to the village for going into the woods without an adult. Of course they would also rat him out, which caused him to get a lecture about the same thing. Like that'd stop him from going back anyway._

 _It was the past couple of months in particular, however, that have been a little rougher for the boy. Everything seemed to pile up on him all at once and crash down hard. He turned 8 this year, and literally no one but Gobber acknowledged the day. Gobber's birthday gift to him was teaching him how to make his own dagger since he knew how to throw one now. Dragons don't celebrate birthdays as it turned out, but after hearing about it, they at least tried to make it a nicer day for him, but in the end it was just spending time with the dragons that helped his mood._

 _Times were a little stressful right now with the coming winter and the dragon raid depleting their food storages, so his dad ended up paying even less attention to him while he focused on the village, almost ignoring the boy completely. Hiccup tried to help out in different ways, coming up with ideas to make food storages safer and trying to make farming more efficient, but unfortunately there were three individuals that loved to make his life miserable. A combination of Snotlout sabotaging everything he does, and his own usual clumsiness, not to mention being the smallest one of his age, quickly earned him the reputation of being the village screw up. Snotlout even went as far as awarding him the unofficial title of Hiccup the Useless, which hurt more than the other nicknames he typically came up with. Normally Hiccup could just brush off the insults as Snotlout being Snotlout, but being called useless, and seeing the clear agreement on the faces of most adults, even if they didn't say it out loud, cut deep. And the more 'hiccups' he caused, even the ones that weren't his fault, the more the village seemed to think he lived up to the name._

 _Today just seemed to be the day that made the stack topple over, however. It started when he woke up to an empty house, his dad having left on_ another _hunt for the nest, so he walked to the Great Hall to get some breakfast, and who else should he pass than the one who can't start off his day right without picking on him? Gobber had mercifully come to his rescue and Hiccup managed to make it up the steps and go inside. That didn't stop Snotlout from tripping him though, making him dump his entire plate of food on the floor and then stepping on it. Gobber gave him another plate of food and walked him straight to the forge so he could eat before getting to work for the day. After finishing his food, Gobber got him started on sharpening the freshly made swords, and as luck would have it, he accidently touched a hot blade that was straight out of the furnace, which made him jump and cut himself with a freshly sharpened sword across the forearm. It took a solid 20 minutes for Gobber to dress both wounds because Hiccup had a hard time sitting still from the pain._

 _Both were still throbbing even now as he walked through the woods toward the cove, and was probably going to leave a nasty scar. He made a mad dash for the tree line the minute he exited the forge because Snotlout didn't waste a second in criticizing him for the mistake he made once he spotted the bandages, poking fun at him and saying that he couldn't even do something he'd been learning for over 2 years. And though Hiccup knew that half of his mishaps were Snotlout's fault, no one even gave him the time of day or believed him when he tried to explain that it was his cousin's fault. The events of the past couple of months kept replaying in his head as he walked mechanically in the direction of the cove, head hanging low and his body on autopilot, eventually coming to the entrance of his destination._

 _Upon his entering, he was jarred from his thoughts by his surrogate brother shoving his nose into his face and sniffing. Keh-Teh usually did this when he knew he was upset about something because it always made him laugh. This time, however, he didn't even receive so much as a smile._

" _ **What's wrong Eketeb?"**_ _Alaba asked gently._

" _ **I'm fine**_ _," He said quietly, resting a hand on Keh-Teh's head as he sniffed at him again in concern._

" _ **No you're not,"**_ _his brother said._ _ **"Your head is hanging and your face is wet. And what happened to your arm? I smell blood."**_

 _Alaba walked closer and gently nosed her son back, silently asking him to back up. She dipped her head low to look at Hiccup's face as he closed his eyes and started sniffling. She sat up and wrapped a paw over his back and pulled him close, prompting Hiccup to immediately bury himself into her chest and cry. After a moment, she pulled away and used a wing to usher him over to the mouth of the cave on the other side of the cove. Once inside they crossed over the small rock bridge that allowed water to flow into the cave underneath it and disappear into a tunnel to the left, and they rounded the corner on the right and entered a dome like room with a hole near the top of the wall that let just enough of the evening light into the room to be able to see. Alaba moved to the back of the room and laid down, pulling hiccup along with her, and he automatically curled into a ball between her front legs and nuzzled into her chest again as Keh-Teh came up behind him and laid down as well, resting his head on Hiccup's back._

" _ **Tell me what happened, Teh-Bah,"**_ _She urged softly after a few minutes._

" _I can't do anything right!" He burst out after a brief pause in his native tongue rather than Draken. "S-something always-ways goes wrong when I try to h-help, n-no one b-believes-s me and n-no one l-likes m-me. T-they all-l call me u-useless," he managed to get out between sobs. Alaba suddenly understood. All the bullying had finally gotten to him and he broke down. She tucked him in closer to her in a comforting manner, Keh-Teh still snuggling up behind him in his own form of comfort._

" _ **You're not useless Teh-Bah. Nothing they say is true."**_

" _Y-yes I a-am! Ev-even my n-name means ru-runt, I'm-m a m-mis-stake!" Hiccup continued to cry, curling tighter into his mother figure._

" _ **You are not a mistake, they just don't know what they have. They can't see what makes you so special."**_

" _I-I'm not s-special. I'm-m a s-screw up!"_

" _ **No you're not. You are a smart, brave and strong little boy. They just refuse to see it."**_

" _H-how?"_

" _ **Well, I don't think I need to explain how you're smarter than those that pick on you. You learned a language that no one in your village even knows exist, and you're determined."**_

" _B-but I'm n-not brave."_

" _ **You came across a big scary dragon when you were all alone in the woods, and then spent the next**_ **year** _ **tracking it down again."**_

" _You n-never wanted to hurt me t-though, so I was never in d-danger," Hiccup replied, his crying finally calming down so he can actually speak more clearly._

" _ **But you didn't know that. For all you knew, I could've wanted to eat you as soon as I saw you. You spent every day, for a year, looking for a dragon 100 times your size,"**_ _this comment earned a giggle,_ _ **"in the woods literally from the day after you almost died. Walking into the woods, by yourself, especially for someone your age and size, is very dangerous. How many other people in your village do the same? Hmm? They're always with at least one more person, but you walked all alone…looking for a dragon. I'd call that pretty brave."**_

 _Hiccup nodded, wiping his nose and sniffling._

" _ **Not to mention you regularly get on a dragon's back and fly through the clouds without being afraid of falling,"**_ _Keh-Teh chimed in._

" _Cause I trust you to catch me," Hiccup replied, wiping his face dry on his shirt._

" _ **Do you know how brave you have to be give someone that kind of trust? It's not easy to put your own life in someone else's care, but you were brave enough to trust a**_ **dragon** _ **, the very creature that you were taught was**_ **evil** _ **, to keep you safe,"**_ _Alaba replied. Hiccup looked down in thought._

" _Ok, but I'm not strong."_

" _ **You're a different kind of strong. You're strong inside. You have a strong heart, and a strong mind, and definitely a strong spirit. You know how I can tell?"**_ _Hiccup shook his head._ _ **"Because you wake up every morning, and you muster up the strength to go out and face the day. You don't close yourself off in a corner. You're teased, and you're bullied, but you still walk outside and keep going with your day. I don't think you realize how much strength it takes for someone to pull through that kind of situation day after day.**_ **That** _ **is why you're special Teh-Bah. And you know what? If they can't see that, than they're missing out on so much."**_ _She ended her sentence by gently touching the top of her head against Hiccup's, which was followed by Keh-Teh giving him a big sloppy lick across the cheek._

" _EW!" He yelled, but immediately started giggling while wiping his shirt on his face, trying in vain to get the saliva off his skin. "Keh-Teh that's gross!"_

" _ **It made you laugh didn't it, Fishbone?"**_

" _I'm not a fishbone,_ Toothless _!"_

 _Alaba just laughed at the exchanged, happy to see Hiccup cheering up at least a little, however she noted that it was far past the time Hiccup needed to be home as the sun was very low, the sky darkened as it sunk behind the horizon._

" _ **It's about time to go home, I think,"**_ _she said gently. Hiccup immediately shook his head._

" _I don't want to go back to the village. This is more home than that is."_

" _ **Teh-bah-"**_

" _Can't I stay the night here? Just tonight? And I'll go back in the morning," he pleaded with great big sad eyes. Keh-Teh joined in on the puppy-dog stare, the two ganging up on their mother. After a few silent moments, she sighed._

" _ **Alright, but just tonight. Now it's time for you to sleep,"**_ _she said as she tucked him toward her even closer and lowered her head over him, completely enveloping his small frame in her white scales, mimicking a hug, before lifting her head again to look at him. He took the opportunity to get comfy and snuggle into the crook between her leg and shoulder, Keh-Teh wrapping a wing around him from behind and settling down himself, taking up the rest of the space between her legs._

 _After a moment, she began to hum, a low rumbling sound that was odd to hear coming from a dragon, but soothing none the less. After a few seconds, Hiccup realized that there was a soft melody, and if he listened closely enough, he could make some words that she seemed to be singing softly._

" _ **Wandering child of the earth,  
Do you know just how much you're worth?  
You have walked this path since your birth,  
You were destined for more.**_

 _ **There are those who'll tell you you're wrong  
They will try to silence your song  
But right here is where you belong  
So don't search anymore."**_

 _Hiccup snuggled further into the warmth of both dragons, body finally giving into exhaustion after the day he'd had and started to doze off to the soft vibrations in Alaba's chest as she continued to hum the soft lullaby._

 _ **You are the dawn of a new day that's waking  
A masterpiece still in the making  
The blue in an ocean of grey…"**_

 _She rested her head on top of Keh-Teh's back, having no other place to put it, still humming long after her sons fell asleep. She once again found herself mulling over the idea of taking Hiccup with her when she eventually left. Neukete was reaching the age where he was all set to take care of himself, and it would be time for them to fly off in their own directions as he continued to grow. The problem was Hiccup. She couldn't just leave him here to deal with this torment by himself. She had been fighting with herself on this decision, even going so far as to take a day trip out to a friend of hers in the area to get her opinion._

 _The two of them had the same thoughts it seemed, as she wanted to pull him out of the situation just as badly, but decided that it was best to let him make the decision to leave on his own. Only he would know when he was ready to leave, and as much as it killed them both, it would benefit him to get as much skill under his belt from the village as he could before leaving._

 _With that final and painful thought, she closed her eyes and let herself drift off to sleep._

* * *

Eketeb/Teh-Bah: Hiccup's Draken name  
Neukete/Keh-Teh: Toothless' Draken name  
Estekena/Keh-Nah: Arman's childhood companion  
Alaba/Ah-mah/Mama: Hiccup's surrogate mother

Alright, lots of stuff happening in this chapter. Young Hiccup struggling, Alaba fighting with herself, Gobber struggling with resurfacing pain (thanks Astrid), and rising tension between people because of Astrid's stupid decision. Feelings long buried are being dug back up and Hiccup is presented with the problem of figuring out what will come next and how to face it.

And on the side, we have an origin story of the lullaby Hiccup sang to his kids in chapter one. Again, you guys, if you've never heard this song, I do recommend you look it up. It's called Wanderers Lullaby and it's beautiful, and instantly made me think of my AU's Hiccup.

Alrighty. Well, as said above, chapter creation is going slower than I want it to, what with not being able to really type for long periods without pain, and it's the busy season at my workplace right now, so overtime also takes away from the time I have to write. But, at least I'm still updating. :/ sorry for the slow going, guys.

Anyway, that is all I have to say at the moment. Again, please let me know if you spot any simple corrections to be made (wonky sentences, missing/additional words in sentences, misspellings, etc.), so than I can fix those. There were also a lot of point of view switching going on this chapter, so if there is a transition that doesn't quite make sense, or a confusing scene change, feel free to let me know so I can fix that as well. I tried to make it as clear as possible.

'Till next time! Thank you much!


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